Marsha Rozalski ~ My Life ~ My Blog

I Have Moved!

2009-05-15T17:10:00.003-04:00

Just to let everyone know, I have moved my blog and I no longer will be using this one here at blogger. The new blog is:

MarshaRozalski.com

This will be the last post on this blog so if you want to keep up with me be sure to update your bookmarks!

A Garden - FINALLY!!

2009-05-15T16:39:00.003-04:00

Well, I finally found someone to till up the garden! The neighbor boy borrowed one of the neighbors tillers and did up my garden in less then an hour! It's a kick butt tiller too. The kind where the blades are in back of the wheels and not in front of them. I want one of those so bad!! I will be planting at the beginning of the week. It's supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow and I'm busy Sunday so maybe Monday I can start. I hope Chuck gets the blades changed on the mower soon so I can use the clippings in the garden to keep the weeds at bay.

Here is Richard doing up the garden.

I know it's in an odd place (right off the back deck) but when we rented the place out in 2006 while we were in Florida, the woman had 3 truck loads of sand brought in for her pool. This is where she put it. So, I now use it for a garden. It does REALLY well in this sandy spot. We are also going to be tearing up the back yard and getting rid of all the stumps this summer and I don't want Chuck or anyone else running the garden over with a bulldozer!

Tennis

2009-05-14T09:08:00.003-04:00

The boys had a Tennis match yesterday. They played doubles and I finally remembered to bring my camera! Here are some pictures of them playing.

Oh My!

2009-05-12T17:07:00.005-04:00

Okay, I'm sitting in the library using the kiddy game table so I can plug in my laptop and this kid about 15 or 16 just comes over to me asks me if I know this song, can't remember what song now, and then proceeds to sing the English version and THEN the Japanese version right here in the library!! I was SO uncomfortable!! He had purple nail polish and had a long cloth type raincoat on, just over his shoulders, and had on a t-shirt and jeans. Then talks for a while and leaves. YIKES!!

Joe had his finally band concert last night. We met his girlfriend and her mother. She seems very nice. I wanted to get a picture of both of them since they were dressed up but Joe was having none of that! LOL!

I did get a picture of the 2 of them sitting way on the other side of the gym but it turned out really dark. Oh well!

Today the piano tuner came and for 5 hours all I heard was PING, PING, PING, PING, PING!!! He really hits all those keys HARD! BUT, we now have a piano that sounds really nice!! We have been living with an WAY out of tune piano for almost a year. We had it tuned but it went out that same week. ARG!! We have to get used to it. All the songs sound wrong to us since we are used to the piano being a half step lower and flat.

Flat Tire

2009-05-09T21:49:00.002-04:00

Man, what a day today has been! Tomorrow we are going to a birthday party so Chuck wanted to take me out for Mother's Day today. He wanted to take me to Erie and look around for porch swings and go out to eat and see a movie. We left at 2pm and we get about 10 minutes from the house and I hit something in the road and popped my back passenger side tire! I pull off into a gass well driveway and we had to call his brother, Dave, to come rescue us.

WHY?

Because my spare has been dead since 2006!!! It has a bent rim and doesn't hold air, though the tire itself is fine. Wonderful!! Now we are stuck with no spare and had to call for help. Dave FINALLY gets there and takes us home and we took Chuck's truck to Erie. We got the tire fixed at Wal*Mart. We now have lost 2 hours!

But, we did have a great time! We ate at the Outback, looked around at the swings, stopped at the video store with the boys, saw the movie "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" and then went back to my truck to changed the tire.

BUT, I must have left the key turned in the ingnition as the truck was dead and I couldn't get the doors open. You have to have power to use the keypad or the remote. I haven't EVER used the key to open the door so it's froze up! SO, we left my truck there and we will deal with it tomorrow. I guess I won't be going to church and getting my flower :(

CJ's 14th Birthday

2009-05-09T13:35:00.007-04:00

Yesterday was CJ's birthday. They only had a half day at school so I picked them up at 11:30am and went to Ashtabula. Joe got spacers put in his teeth. He will be getting a device put in to widen his upper jaw on the 20th of this month.

After that I took them to the video game store. CJ knows he is getting a XBox 360 for his birthday so he took his money and got himself a game and Joe bought him one with his own money! I was surprised at this! I bought him one too for his birthday.

Then we went and got them both new shoes. They REALLY needed them and they really like their new shoes and I liked that they were on sale!

I then went to Wal*Mart to get CJ's cake. They only had a pink cake in the size and flavor I wanted, oh well! LOL!

We finally got home around 2:30pm. CJ had his friend from school come out to play his name is Collin. Dave, my nephew, was here too helping Chuck with cleaning up the yard. Chuck tried to mow with the mower, LOL!! What a joke!! It really did NOTHING LOL!! So, he needs to put new blades on it and get it so that when we turn the key it will turn over and start running. BUT, the back deck and around the house got cleaned up. Chuck likes to put stuff EVERYWHERE and doesn't care how long it stays there!! This drives me crazy!!! So, now I know that if I want the place cleaned up, throw a big party!!! LOL!!!

So, when Collin came out we had CJ open his present.

Here is his cake

Here is the neighboros dog, Teddy, his is a BIG MOOCH!! He was here ONLY for the food, LOL!!

Here is a group eating, Collin is sitting in the back and that is Chuck's youngest brother, Paul, the girl in the yellow is Pauls and the other girls are Brenda's.

We had a fireworks show, of course!! We are fireworks crazy! It was a good show, though not huge. We all had a really good time. Dave spent the night with the boys to play on the Xbox, I went into there room at 2am and told CJ to shut it down and go to sleep! Joe and Dave where sleeping on the floor. I guess CJ was too excited to sleep, LOL!!

All in all, I think he had a good day. OH, I asked him if he wanted to invite his girlfriend and he told me that they had to break up. CJ told me that she LIED to her parents about the movie!! She said she was going with her girlfriends and didn't mention that CJ would be there too!! She isn't aloud to date till she is 16 so they had to break up. Might be for the best and he's fine with it so I am not going to worry about it. I'm glad CJ didn't lie to me about it.

He got about $45 in cash for his birthday too, this made him quiet happy!!

This Weeks Happenings

2009-05-07T09:56:00.003-04:00

Not much has really happened this week so far. CJ will be 14 tomorrow! Then in Sept. Joe will be 13 so I will officially have 2 teenagers come Sept 5th!

The boys have been playing a lot of Tennis matches this week. This was supposed to be the last week of Tennis but they may have some make-ups to do so it may run into next week. I know I will be glad not to have to run here and there all the time.

We have to fix our mower. Chuck wanted to have a party here for CJ tomorrow and our mower needs some serious help! 2 tires, a battery, blades, and a starter thingy, LOL!! I'm glad that Chuck wanted this party, makes him fix the mower! At least I hope so. He says he's going to do that today. I usually mow once a week. I'm tired of blowing up the tires and jump starting it and turning it over with a screwdriver!!! That is how I mowed last year and this year I REFUSE to mow like that so we have REALLY tall grass right now LOL!!

Chuck bought a bunch of fireworks so we'll be having a show for his birthday too.

Work has been pretty steady for Chuck but we wish it was more. We are slowly starting to pay off all the bills that accumulated over the winter with him being out of work. This summer we are going to work on paying off everything we can and paying things up for a whole year so that the bills that come in over the winter will be much smaller. The roofing seems to be going much better this year then last year. Thank God he has his roofing company cuz the logging SUCKS!! But, I'm not going there!

Today is lunch with the girls. Every Thursday at 12:30 we meet at Crazy Dave's Sugar Bowl in town and have lunch. It's not just girls though. Sometimes we bringing our spouse's or bosses, LOL! But we have a good time. It used to be us girls that used to workout together every morning at Curves, but Curves shut down here in town and now it's just a group of people that hang out every Thursday to chat and catch up with each other.

WLD Ranch

2009-05-03T16:30:00.009-04:00

Today WLD Ranch had an open house where you can go for free and ride horses, shoot bow and arrows, throw hatches, take a wagon ride, and all kinds of stuff. The boys didn't want to ride horses because it was just in a circle going very slow, they thought they were to old for that, LOL! The line for the wagon ride was WAY to long so we didn't do that either. They loved shooting arrows. We took my nephew David with us too.

Then they went over and threw the hatchets.

My friend Christina and her husband, Dave and their three girls where there too. It was good to see her and to hang out with them. She forgot her camera at home so I took pictures of her girls doing all their stuff too. She was glad that I remembered my camera! LOL!! I actually took my big camera as it has a really good zoom on it. It's bulky and I don't always take it with me to places.

All in all, we had a good day! Got home by 4:15 and the kids are now watching "School for Scoundrels" then I have to run Dave up to the Church and we'll just hang out around here for the rest of the day.

Helping with the Sub Sales

2009-05-01T08:27:00.005-04:00

I went to the church on Wed. around 10am to help with the subs. I was on the veggie crew. The kids come in later and put the sandwiches together. I was doing tomatoes and lettuce. I was doing the tomato slicer, which rocks! Wish I took a picture of it. You put the tomato on it and push it through and bam, perfect slices! It's quick and easy. The guys where coring but they couldn't keep up with me so they asked us girls to help core real quick. I said okay and started coring. I was doing 7 to their 1, they were impressed with my coring abilities so I lost my cushy job as tomato slicer!! LOL!! Pastor Carson took over that one. Ah well!

Once they were all sliced we put them in litter boxes, yup that's what they are but they were never used for that! LOL!! Then we all sat around and put 2 slices per baggie until they were all done. I think we did 750 bags.

Once we were finally done with that we all had lunch of PB&J sandwiches with chips. It was really good as that is my favorite sandwich! Then it was back to work. This time with lettuce! We had to make 750 bags of lettuce too. I did what I could but had to leave at 2pm to get the boys from school.

The boys were doing it wrong and every time you picked up a bag of lettuce it all fell out. We had to show them how to do it right and we made Seth, the one you see there, tape up all the ones they did wrong, LOL!!

Georgia cuts the bread every year. She buys it fresh the day we made the subs.

After I got the boys from school they had music lessons and then I dropped them off at the church to assemble the subs. CJ sold 12. I ate mine that night and so did Chuck! LOL! Joe had his cut in half and that made 2 lunches. CJ ate his last night before gymnastics. CJ took the subs to school and handed them out to the teachers that bought them. It was a long day but it was fun!

CJ's First Date, oh my!

2009-04-29T08:04:00.003-04:00

I found a note this morning on CJ's computer. I was gathering up all the laundry and found it. A whole front page! LOL!! It was so darn cute I put a date on it and kept it. He was asking if he could go out on a date with his new girlfriend of 2 weeks!! They want to see the new Hanna Montana Movie here in town. She is a couple month younger then him and they will be going with 3 other girls. LOL!! Joe and CJ have a TON of girls that are their friends and not really any guy friends. I called Chuck and read him the note over the phone. We both thought it was so cute! CJ was afraid to ask me face to face because he didn't want me to say "no". LOL!

We think it's fine as long as I drop him off at the theater and then pick him up there. Man, can't believe I'm in the next phase of life with these guys, GIRLS!! LOL!! Next will be driving and more serious dating, YIKES!! Hope I live to see them graduate, LOL!! You should see all the girls that flock around both of them! It's kind of funny really. I haven't met this girl yet so I'll have to do that. I'm NOT going to be letting him go to their house to hang out though. He hasn't asked but I know that will come. I don't mind if she comes here though. I can keep on eye on them better! So, we'll see how this plays out.

The boys might have an away Tennis game today, I need to find out so I can cancel their music lessons. I will be going to the Church here soon to help cut up veggies and help with making Subs. The kids sold a bunch to help pay their way to camp. CJ made almost enough money to pay his way. We just had to pay a dollar! LOL! Camp is $140 this year, he made $139. LOL! He got money for camp by selling those Chocolate Easter eggs too.

Becky, I hope Tater pulls through. Know that I am thinking about him and praying that he'll do just fine! Glad you got him to the doctor when you did! Poor little thing! Hope he comes home soon!

Beach and Joe

2009-04-27T07:57:00.006-04:00

I did manage to go to the beach and look for sea glass. I found a few good pieces. I ended up getting sun burnt too! OUCH! Not too bad though. I walked around for about 3 hours. I should have taken a jacket, it was very windy and I was actually cold! Here was my take.

Can you see the 2 tiny dark blue pieces? That color of blue is SO HARD to find!! I pick up even the smallest of blue pieces! That big white piece is the bottom of a bottle, even has numbers on it. So, not bad for one day. I want to fill this jar by the end of summer.

There were a lot of people down there doing the same thing as me. Guess it's a popular hobby! I saw some folks skiing with giant kites. All the white you see in this picture are shells!!! You do NOT want to walk on those with bare feet!! OUCH!!!

Yesterday I got an email from Joe's music teacher. He wondered where Joe was on Saturday night. Come to find out Joe had a concert for the JR. Phil, at the Warner Theater. They were to play in the lobby while folks where coming in. Joe NEVER said a word about it. All he said was, "Mom, there is a paper in my folder for you." On Tuesday night when he came home from JR. Phil. It was 9pm and I was tired and busy. He never took the paper out and gave it to me and I guess I forgot about it. So, he missed his concert!! Not the main one, that is this Thursday. Chuck and I were VERY upset!! All we did that night was lay around and watch TV! Joe does this. He does it with Band, he'll get in the truck when I pick him up and he'll say, "Oh yeah, we have a concert tonight." He just doesn't remember to tell us anything!!! I'm so upset, because he only plays 2 concerts a year and it would have been nice to play another one. ARG!!!!

Friday

2009-04-25T09:38:00.003-04:00

Yesterday while taking the boys to school we saw the most awesome FULL DOUBLE rainbow!!!! It was wonderful!!! I stopped to take a picture and I realized that I forgot my phone at home, so I used CJ's but I didn't know I had to press the save button and when I gave the phone back to him it died, so I have no picture of it and it was gone by the time I got home. We had a short storm and it cleared up to be a beautiful day!

I went out with a friend of mine from high school. I had dinner with her, her husband Ron and their 6 year old son James. Then Debbie and I went to see the movie "17 Again" which was really good. The only bad thing was I got a BAD migraine half way through the movie. By the time the movie was done I was in MAJOR pain and as soon as it said "The End" I ran out! LOL!! Debbie had no idea I was so sick so she wondered why I had run out like that. I was trying VERY hard not to throw up all the way back to her place. I ran out of her car and into her house and went and right into her room and laid down! LOL!! Ron wondered what the heck I was doing. Debbie had to tell him I was really sick when she came in. I laid there for over an hour before I thought I could drive myself home. It's a 40 minute drive! I barely made it home and I collapsed into my bed. I feel better this morning. I feel so bad that I was so sick. We don't get together as often as we used to because she works 2 jobs. SIGH!!

Today is going to be a hot one! I already have my A/C on!! I live in a hot box and if I don't turn it on it will be over 90 in my house by 3pm. It got over 80 in here yesterday and it was SO HOT all night long. I'm SO GLAD I have central air in here!! Makes the summers fly by! LOL! I might go down to the beach today and search for sea glass. One summer I got a pint jar filled with the stuff. I didn't go much last year since I don't live right by the beach any more. Here is a picture of our beach.

Shaheen Jafargholi - 12 Year Old Singer - Britains Got Talent 2009

2009-04-22T08:53:00.001-04:00

Wow, this kid is REALLY good!! I watched this a few times. It's wonderful!! Just click on the picture!!!

Better Today

2009-04-21T09:34:00.004-04:00

I am feeling MUCH better today! I went to SNAP this morning and walked the treadmill and came home and vacuumed the whole house. I now realize that the pain pills I was taking were making me VERY sick! I would all of a sudden get REALLY nauseated and break out in a sweat and I would lay on the couch sweating and moaning and then it would go away and I'd be really cold and then it would start again and I would be sweating and then cold. It would do this for hours! I thought it was just because of the surgery. I stopped taking the pain pills on day 3 and felt better but my stomach still hurt but I could live. Then I went to a party at the church and I helped clean up. I ended up hurting pretty bad and had the starts of a headache so I thought I would take a pain pill and lay down and watch tv the rest of the night. WRONG!! I got VERY sick again with sweats and chills and bad nausea for over 6 hours. I was sick all day yesterday too but not with being hot and cold just nauseated to the point that I would have to lay down. So, had I not taken any pain pills I would have had a MUCH better recovery!! Who knew!!

My pepper plants have FINALLY come up!! YEAH!! I'm glad about that. Can't wait to get everything planted.

We have an Amish crew just down the road cutting the neighboros woods. Chuck is not going to be doing any more cutting he'll be having Amish crews do that from now on. He went fishing on Saturday for maybe 2 or so hours and was in pain all the next day. It makes him mad that he can't do simple things like that without being in pain. It's going to take a VERY long time for him to fully heal. He still walks with a limp. I wish he would do physical therapy but he feels it wouldn't do any good.

Beautiful Day!

2009-04-18T19:25:00.002-04:00

Today was SO nice out! I actually wore shorts today!! We all took a ride WAY out into the country today. I sat with my window all the way down all the way there and back. Chuck had to talk to an Amish guy out in Spartinsburgh today about the job they will be starting here on our road next week. Amish don't have phones so we had to drive all the way out there! It was a very beautiful drive though. We ate lunch at the one restaurant they had there in town and it was really good. Didn't get home till about 4pm.

I took CJ's glasses in this morning to Wal*Mart and they put them in the other frames no problem and it took about 5 minutes. CJ is glad to have them back as next week is the week long testing in school.

I'm feeling much better though it still hurts to laugh! I also STILL can't sleep on my side so I haven't been getting good sleep. I HATE sleeping on my back but when I turn on my side it causes me great pain and I have no idea why. It feels like it's pulling so I just lay on my back.

My tomato plants that I started indoors have all come up but the hot peppers have not. I do hope they come up, if not I will be buying plants at the nursery this year for hot and not hot peppers. My sister, Kitty, started some for me and she said hers all came up. I'm hoping this week they will. Last time I did peppers NOTHING came up!!

Thursday News

2009-04-16T20:07:00.002-04:00

Today was an okay day. I'm feeling some what better but I still hurt. It's like I did 5,000 sit ups in about 5 minutes. My whole stomach hurts like I worked out too hard, LOL!! But it looks good and is healing just fine.

Yesterday I had a reaction to the IV and my whole arm swelled up and got red and hurt really bad. We went right to the doctors thinking it was infected but it wasn't and they said just wrap it up in a heating pad, which made it feel much better! Today it's a little red but no longer swollen, still hurts but much better. Odd, I never had that reaction to an IV before.

CJ broke his glasses today, he just laid his arm down on them and they snapped in half. Joe has the exact same frames and told CJ he could have them since he no longer needed them. I thought that was nice of him. Joe has decided that the free glasses he got are pretty good and he no longer wants to put lenses in his old frames so CJ can have them. I will have to have that done tomorrow. CJ needs them to read or he ends up with headaches.

Joe was supposed to play Tennis at today's match but he's on the bottom and the other team didn't have anyone to play the exhibition match so he didn't get to play. He really wanted too though. I was SO ready to go home after an hour.

Today I noticed that there was a puddle of oil under my truck. I will be calling Dean in the morning and letting him know about it. It must be the rear end they put in something is leaking somewhere.

Had lunch with the girls today and had a really good time. They had me laughing so hard that my stomache hurt! Sometimes we can be a really rowdy bunch on Thursdays!

Stuff

2009-04-15T07:46:00.002-04:00

Well, got my truck back yesterday, FINALLY!! At least it runs REALLY good now!! I can go through water without being thrown across the road, that's nice. I don't shake really bad either. It drives really smooth! Had Dean change the oil too. We are all glad to have my truck back!

Joe was supposed to have a Tennis match yesterday but just when they were going to start it started raining and it was canceled. So, here is CJ and I in Ashtabula 2 and a half hours before he starts gymnastics! We went to Wal*Mart and got some chocolate bunnies that were marked down and then I just dropped him off early and went to the library. By the time I got home I was crying. I was so miserable and in pain! I should have stayed home. I was gone from 3:30 till 9pm. I went straight to bed when I got home too. I even fell asleep sitting up around 11am and slept till Dean called at 1pm to tell me my truck was done. Good thing or I wouldn't have picked the kids up from school!

Today, I took them to school and came right home. I will pick them up and come straight home. If Joe's Tennis match is today, seeing if the rain goes away, I won't be going. I will stay right at home and NOT go anywhere!

Joe's Band Teacher

2009-04-14T08:27:00.003-04:00

Update: I see a LOT of people coming to this post to find out about Jeffery A. Bickle. If you want to know more about this case click HERE.

Joe's all time favorite teacher is his band teacher, Mr. Bickle. This was in yesterday's paper. Joe is VERY upset, poor guy!

Police arrest teacher in sex-with-student case

CONNEAUT — A 25-year-old Conneaut Middle School music teacher appeared in Conneaut Municipal Court Monday afternoon on charges he had sex with a 17-year-old high school student over the past several months.

Jeffrey A. Bickel, 275 Whitney St., faces five counts of sexual battery, a third-degree felony, and one count of disseminating material harmful to juveniles, a fifth-degree felony, according to court records.

Bickel surrendered to authorities Monday afternoon, accompanied by attorney Paul Conn of Youngstown. After a brief hearing before Conneaut Municipal Court Judge Thomas Harris, Bickel went to city jail, where he was booked and fingerprinted.

He was released on a personal recognizance bond, a court spokeswoman said. A preliminary hearing will be held at 11 a.m. May 12.

Each of the sexual battery charges carries a maximum five-year prison sentence and $10,000 fine. The disseminating-material charge carries a maximum one-year prison sentence and $2,500 fine. If convicted, Bickel faces a possible 26-year jail sentence.

Sexual battery charges were filed because the alleged victim is a student in an “institution of higher learning,” where the alleged offender is “a teacher, administrator, coach or other person in authority,” according to a copy of the arrest warrant.

As a condition of his release, Bickel must stay away from all Conneaut schools, including several neighborhoods surrounding Conneaut High School; may not attend any school function in Conneaut or in Ohio; and cannot contact the girl or her family, according to court records.

Conneaut Detective Sgt. Charles Burlingham said police began their investigation after receiving a call from Ashtabula County Children’s Services a few weeks ago.

The Children Services Board contacted police after receiving an anonymous complaint about a Conneaut teacher having sexual relations with a student.

During the course of the investigation, police obtained search warrants late last month. According to court records, officers sought cellular telephone and computer data from Bickel’s home.

Court records do not yet indicate what material — if any — police took from the home.

An affidavit police filed with the court to secure the search warrants provided some information about the investigation. The girl denied having a relationship with Bickel when interviewed at CHS last month by police and a CSB representative, according to the document. One day later, police and the CSB representative spoke with the girl’s parents, and her mother said her daughter admitted she and Bickel had been exchanging calls and text messages and had “sexual relations” in November or December.

None of the encounters occurred on school property, Burlingham said.

The pair had intercourse on “several (occasions),” according to the affidavit. On one occasion, Bickel reportedly sent nude photos of himself via his cellular telephone to the girl, police said in the affidavit.

Bickel is the music teacher at Conneaut Middle School and assistant marching band director, according to reports. He reportedly began working for the Conneaut Area City Schools District last fall.

Police said they believe Bickel was recently placed on leave.

Kent Houston, CACS’ superintendent, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Monday. Earlier, Houston was seen entering a meeting with Burlingham, Conneaut Law Director Lori Lamer and Luke Gallagher, assistant law director.

Prior to the meeting, Gallagher said Bickel’s alleged conduct was reported to school administrators “at some point” late in 2008 but that information was not shared with police or Children’s Services, Gallagher said. State law obliges school officials to contact authorities with such complaints, Gallagher said.

A message left for Conn at his Youngstown office was not returned immediately Monday afternoon.

All Went Well

2009-04-13T22:12:00.002-04:00

Today my surgery went well. Got there at 8am and I was supposed to have it at 9am but she was running behind. Didn't get back there and started till 11am. It was odd to be rolled down the hallway looking up at the lights going by. I don't remember falling asleep at all.

I woke up and they gave me something for the pain and I went back to sleep. I could NOT seem to wake up!! I have NEVER been THAT tired!! Finally around 3:30 they made me sit up and eat something to wake me up so I could go home. I finally got home at 5pm. They pain isn't too bad at all, I'm just tired. I slept the rest of the day and it's now 10:15pm and I am finally awake enough to be on the computer for a bit.

Joe is on the schedule for playing Tennis so he won't be going to his JR. Phil. I can't wait for JR. Phil to be done. April 30th is his concert and then we are done with that. Tennis will be done around May 7th.

Easter Sunday!

2009-04-12T16:39:00.004-04:00

Well, it's Easter Sunday. I made the boys baskets last night and they each got little gifts. CJ got a nice watch and Joe got some of those rubber shoes and a couple months on his game that he plays. CJ's loves his watch but I just grabbed it and paid at the register so I don't have the instructions for it since I didn't pay at the jewelry counter, LOL! I'll have to check it out online. But, you don't have to set the time, it does it via satellite They got a lot of chocolate of course. NO GRASS!! I don't do grass ever since I saw some hanging out my cats butt!!! EEWW!!! They like to eat the stuff! That is why we don't do tinsel too!! Nothing like seeing Christmas Tree Tinsel hanging out the cats butt!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went to church this morning and then came home to change. The shirt I bought to wear to church was a size too big. It's a low cut front and I had to keep trying to pull it up so my cleavage wasnt' showing! YIKES!! Then we headed over to the in-laws. I made rosemarina salad (of course) and I made deviled eggs. Chuck usually eats about 12 of them himself so there is never enough.

We had a good time and we were home a little after 4pm. I am doing up all the laundry and sweeping the whole house and mopping the kitchen floor because tomorrow I am going in for surgery at 8am. I am having my tubes tied, they don't really tie them but they burn them. Since we have insurance I wanted to have this done before we lost the insurance. I've been wanting Chuck to have it done since Joe was 5 but he just never has. So, I'm taking it upon myself to have it done. I would HATE to have an "accident" right now or even later! YIKES!!!

So, that is up for tomorrow and I'm not sure how I will feel. Chuck is taking the boys out to eat tomorrow so I have NOTHING to worry about tomorrow. They are taking the bus to school and my mother-in-law will pick them up and take them to her house to get their homework done and then she will take them to Tennis practice at 3:30. Chuck will pick them up from there. Not sure how I will feel for the next day. Chuck can take them to school but Tuesday is the day that one kid goes one way and the other kid goes another way. We'll see how it goes when the time comes.

Books and Movies

2009-04-08T21:09:00.002-04:00

You know, I think books are so much better than the movie. I saw this movie on TV the other month called Dolores Claiborne and I decided to get the book. I got the book on CD from the library and put it on my iPod. Not sure if you have ever seen the movie, it's a Stephen King book. But last night I was listening to it in bed and it got to the part about where she kills her husband by making him fall into a 30 foot dry well. In the movie he just falls in and dies but not in the book!! Man, it was SO GOOD that I had to make myself turn it off at 12:30am because I knew I needed to get some sleep! LOL!!

Man, the book is really good. Now, to find another one to listen too, LOL!!

Started some seeds in the house to plant in the garden here soon. Mostly just tomatoes and peppers. The rest I can just plant right into the garden. Hopefully we will get it tilled up here soon.

SNOW!!

2009-04-06T19:11:00.000-04:00

Okay, I thought it was spring???? Yup, it's snowing here and coming down pretty good too. I wonder if spring will ever come and stay?? Here I'm thinking about getting my garden going and it goes and snows!! ARG!!!

Sandy's New Bone

2009-04-06T09:31:00.000-04:00

This is Sandy's first "Big Girl" bone! I bought her a much smaller one the day before and she had it gone in an hour! So, when I was at Wal*Mart I bought her the biggest one they had! She can barely carry it around! She hasn't had any bones all year so I really wanted to get her one but it sure didn't last long. So far, this one is still around and probably will be for some time now, LOL!!

Easter Eggs

2009-04-04T16:27:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I spent most of the day at the church making chocolate covered eggs. We make Peanut Butter, Maple Walnut and coconut. They are 10 oz before you dip them in chocolate. CJ was going to go but he woke up in pain still and didn't want to go. He raising money to go to youth camp so my hours go towards that. I had a really good time. The only problem was the frosting. It was SO runny!! No matter how thick I made it, it ran. I told them their recipe stank and they needed a new one made for decorating and they needed to use frosting bags and not some contraption. Needless to say I am now in charge of frosting and will be for years to come, LOL!! I don't mind, cuz they really needed a new recipe!

The men mixed the batches up.

Then you have to weigh it so that it's 10 oz.

Then you have to shape them to look like potatoes.

Then they get dipped in chocolate.
Then we put them in the fridge to harden then we have to cut the excess chocolate off the bottoms so they will fit into the containers. The excess chocolate doesn't work so well to re-use so we get to take it home. I'm going to make chocolate suckers with mine! Here is a Dean cutting off the excess chocolate.
Then once they are in the containers I go around putting on the frosting. It's supposed to be a pink flower with a leaf but really it's just a pink blob with a green blob, LOL!!! Here is a bunch ready for lids. Wendy's in Girard donated all the containers!

Then we put lids on them and stickers and packed them up into boxes ready to be sold. We sell them for $5 an egg. I think we made over 300 eggs yesterday. I don't remember. Here is Kenny packing them up.

I was there for 5 hours and I can't believe how TIRED I was the rest of the day!!! I was totally wiped out. I guess I'm going soft! LOL!! If we sell out this Sunday we will be doing this again on Thursday and I will make a new batch of frosting and use frosting bags and the flowers will look like flowers! LOL!!

Bloody Noses

2009-04-02T15:58:00.000-04:00

Well, at noon today the school nurse called me and said CJ was having a bloody nose and it was REALLY bad. We get this a lot. CJ has them all the time. In fact, this was the third one this week. They last about an hour and he does bleed all over the place. He was at lunch and got up cuz he knew he had one and went to the bathroom and got it all over the mirror, sink and floor and had to call the janitor. They made me take him to the ER. Good grief! So much for lunch with the girls this week. I was going to leave in 15 minutes when I got the call.

So, took him to the ER and the doctor we like was there and joked around with CJ and they were both laughing most of the time. We told him about the other doctor and what happened and he wasn't too happy about it. The doctor said he was the head of ER and he wanted to know who it was. I had no clue and just said it was last month sometime.

I felt so bad for CJ, the doctor had to use silver nitrate and burn the vessel that keeps breaking open causing the nose bleeds. He numbed the area but CJ still shook, turned really red and cried. This is a guy that never cries because he is hurt so I KNEW he was in some major pain.

Then the doctor got this long piece of gauze covered in Vaseline and rolled it up and shoved it up his nose! He has to keep it there till Saturday morning. It's SO uncomfortable for him. He has this weird band aide over it too. The doctor told the nurse, "Okay, bring me the nose sling" LOL!!! CJ couldn't stop laughing and then the doctor couldn't stop laughing! LOL!! Love that guy!

The doctor said no school tomorrow and no gymnastics tonight. He gave me a note to give to the school. CJ and I went back to the school since all his stuff was still there. There is no school next week for spring break so we wanted to be sure to bring it all home. The nurse felt better knowing that CJ will probably not have bloody noses any more. She felt bad when she saw him, he looks terrible! I gave the school the note so I don't have to worry about calling them tomorrow. We waited in the back parking lot for an hour till school let out and got Joe and went home.

By the time we got home his nose REALLY hurt since the numbing had worn off. He's been in his room all night and he so wants to take out that gauze. He keeps sneezing and that isn't helping either. Tomorrow is the day we make chocolate covered eggs at our church. They are 10oz BEFORE you dip them! They are SO good. CJ wants to go but we'll see how he feels. I will still go. CJ was selling eggs to earn money for camp this summer. He gets paid to make them too. That is why I am going so he can get credit for it. We'll have to see how is doing.

Chuck and I went into town and dropped Joe off to Tennis practice and then went over to Dean's Auto. Found out that the problem with my truck is the 4X4. It is wanting to lock but it won't let it so it shakes my whole truck like crazy. This whole time I thought I had bad tires. They aren't sure why it's wanting to do that so they have to figure that out. In the mean time, Dean gave us his plow truck to drive around because only have one truck isn't working. Chuck can't work since I have to get the boys at 2 and then run them all over. Then on Tuesday's I go one way and Chuck goes another with each boy. So, I thought that was really nice of him to let us use his truck till mine is done. Dean took the plow off the front.

Life

2009-03-31T09:18:00.000-04:00

I still don't have my truck yet. Dean found a problem in the back end but isn't sure what it is so he sent it to a guy that deals in back ends in Girard so we are waiting to hear what it is. My truck shakes and I always thought it was just bad tires but I guess it's not. I hope I get it back soon. Tonight I will have to take Joe to Jr. Phil and CJ will have to miss gymnastics. Last week it was the other way around.

Last night Joe had his Spring Concert for Band at the high school. It was 5th through high school bands and really it was good. We got home late, ate chicken and CJ had to try and finish up his homework. I had to print out his book report, it was a poster type thing. Joe got an A on his!! :) Joe had to have his in last Friday but CJ had till Tuesday. They have different teachers.

My favorite movie broke the other day. I am SO SAD!!! "For Richer or Poorer" is my all time favorite movie and I've had it since the boys where babies and it broke. It was a VHS. I don't know if they had DVD's back then? LOL!! I watched it so much I wore the thing out! I am now going to have to find the DVD.

I couldn't believe it when I woke up yesterday and let the dog out that we have almost 2 inches of snow!! I thought it was spring?? That better be the last time I see snow for a while, LOL! I'm tired of the cold weather.

I'm getting ready for my garden this year. My sister, Kitty, talked me into doing one. I wasn't going to, lazy I guess but I have changed my mind and I'm going to do one. We are going to put it out back where I don't mow but where there are no stumps. We'll have to use the neighbors tractor and plow it up. Hope it goes well! We'll be doing this pretty soon.

My Truck Cont.

2009-03-25T18:52:00.000-04:00

Dean called and the clunking in my truck is the bearings. The front passenger side and the rear drivers side both are VERY bad. He said he's surprised they haven't fallen apart. I'm glad I quit driving it! The back breaks are bad too so all in all $840. He said we could make payments, no problem since we know him really well and he's been doing my truck for years. Will be nice to have a safe truck to drive. Now, I just have to find a good price and get an alignment. Dean doesn't do those.

Took the boys up to the school for tennis practice. It's always inside when it's bad weather out. we got there and CJ saw this lunchbox on the sidewalk and he says, "Hey Mom, look, some retard dropped their lunchbox on the sidewalk." Then Joe goes, "CJ, that's yours!" and CJ is like no it isn't a lot of people have lunchboxes that look like mine. I get out and turn the lunchbox around and it has in really big letters on the side CJ ROZALSKI!!! LOL!!! CJ's like, "Oh, I guess I'm the retard!" LOL!!!! That was hilarious!!! I guess it fell out of his backpack when he was coming out of school and just layed there. I'm glad we went up there for Tennis!

Joe's computer is done and now I have to head up to Erie to get it. Maybe on Friday Chuck and I will go get it. Joe is VERY excited to have his computer back, LOL!! The boys really love playing World of Warcraft.

A nice surprise

2009-03-23T13:26:00.000-04:00

Today, when I went to the mailbox, I got a nice surprise! There was a box from Ezine Articles and when I opened it, there was a really nice mug with a package of coffee inside it. I thought that was so nice. The card said, "I am extremely proud of our genuine expert authors, like you, who are true authorities in their niches & contribute new unique articles every week." I didn't think I was doing one a week, but I guess. I write a lot of articles to get traffic to my blogs. I thought that was really nice, too bad I don't use mugs! LOL!!

It says, "I (heart) Ezine Articles"

I called and got an appointment for my truck. Dean can look at it on Wed. so we will drop it off first thing in the morning. Chuck took the boys to school today and then went to work on the Church roof.

My Truck

2009-03-22T13:21:00.000-04:00

Well, on Thursday night on the way home from getting CJ at gymnastics my front passenger side tire blew out. I was about a mile from the gas station so I made it there and parked it. When it went CJ put the window down and hung out and said, "Mom, your riding on your rim!" I knew it was coming. My tires are extremely worn on the insides and the wires have been showing for some time.

We were able to fix the tires on Saturday. We got to used tires for both front tires, balanced and put on for $40. But now my front end is making a clunking noise. Has since Wed. We thought maybe it was just the tires since they were so bad but with the new ones on it's still makign that awful noise. Could be tyrod ends, cv joints, who knows! Like I need a big auto bill! YIKES!! I've got to have my truck though. I think Chuck is going to have Dean look at it but not sure when he can. Chuck will call him on Monday and find out. I'm praying it's nothing big. Don't you know that as soon as you pay off your vehicle they go to pot! :(

Went to a my friend, Debbies, house last night. Chris came out too so us girls had a girls night out at Debbie's house for her birthday which was Wed. We had a lot of good food and watched a a good movie. It was fun. We used to get together once a month but with our work schedules it's been months since we were able to get together. So, it was nice to just hang out.

Fire Cont.

2009-03-19T10:08:00.000-04:00

I talked with Kim last night at church and she told me that her, Dave and the kids were all crying last night. Poor things!!! Dave feels like his whole life is gone. They found out that the insurance only covers the structure, he didn't have insurance on the contents. He thought he did and was surprised to find out he didn't. So, he lost everything in that fire.

Also found out that he didn't start the fire, that was just a coincidence that he happened to be burning and then left to get the kids from school. The fire started in the middle of the barn and was electrical. By the time he saw the smoke there was no saving the barn as it was really going in the middle. At least he isn't the one that started the whole thing like he thought. The insurance guy is coming on Friday to assess the damage.

Kim told me that they just bought $500 in seed last week! I also found out that Dave has been laid off since Nov. Kim doesn't work either, she stays home. She may have to go out and get a job. She worked at the boys school last year but decided not too this year. It's hard to work all those hours and get billed instead of paid. They have 4 kids in that school and she worked to help pay the tuition and she got a bill for $200 a month. Gotta suck to get a bill instead of a pay check!

I wish there was something I could do to help but we don't have any farm equipment for them to use.

I also found out that the other barn/garage melted on that one side and the rafters inside where on fire and the skylights had melted. That was one very hot fire. Thank God it didn't get the gas well that was behind and to the right of the barn. That would have been something!

Barn Fire

2009-03-18T09:51:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was some day! I went to the school early to get CJ as he had a doctor appointment because he had to get 3 shots. One was tetanus and his whole arm hurts. I got him right back to the school because CJ and Joe both had their Tennis pictures today. They were done a little after three and we started home.

We were about 3 miles from where we turn and we saw this horrible black smoke and there was a LOT of it. I said to the boys, oh no, I hope that isn’t a house fire. We turned at the gas stating and you could really see it. I said Oh No, it looks like the Sherman’s house is on fire! We got closer and no, it wasn’t the Sherman’s. We got up and we saw it was Kim and Dave’s barn a blaze! We know them from church and the boy’s school from last year. It was horrible. The boys were screaming stop and they jumped out of the truck before I was even stopped!

They ran over and started pulling things out of the barn next to the one on fire. The one on fire was an inferno! Men were using hoses to try and save the house. The fire department was called but they are SO SLOW because it’s all volunteers. Dave had me call 911 again to make sure they were coming. They FINALLY showed up and so did 5 other units even Albion came!

The first thing they did was water down the new barn so it wouldn't go down. Thank God the wind was NOT blowing towards the house!! The house would have went down instead of the ditch across the street.

After the boys got everything out of the other barn Joe said, “Mom, make sure you blog this!” Taking pictures was the last thing on my mind but I did take some.

I asked Kim what happened. I guess they were burning and Dave thought he got it totally out and he went to the school to pick up the kids and when he got back he saw smoke coming out of the back of the barn. It went up so fast there was nothing anyone could do but watch it go down.

ALL their farm equipment was in there, they were storing his dad's 1917 Model T Ford, lots of chickens and lots of hay. All those tires made that black smoke we saw. The wind was blowing and the woods and ditch across the street caught on fire too.

That is CJ going over across the street to help Chuck. They had brooms but that just wasn't cutting it. The next firetruck that came put out the fire in the ditch.

The neighbor, Ed, came over to were Kim, Chuck, CJ and I were standing and said, Hey you didn't tell me you were having a wennie roast! Kim laughed and CJ goes, No, we're having FRIED CHICKEN!!! OH MY GOD!! I couldn't believe he said that!!!!! YIKES!! Kim wasn't mad though, she was sad about losing her chickens in the fire though but she's a good sport.

Poor Dave, he had inhaled a lot of smoke trying to save the house and other barn that he collapsed on the ground coughing. Ambulances came to help out too. They gave him oxygen and he was okay. No one was hurt in this fire at all and we are all very thankful!

I had to leave after about an hour because Joe had to be in Fairview for Jr. Phil by 5pm. We all hugged Kim and left. Here is what it looked like when I left.

When the boys and I went by there this morning on our way to school the middle STILL had flames going and there was still a bunch of smoke. It was in the paper today too. I feel really bad as spring is just starting and ALL his farm equipment is now gone :(

The Weekend

2009-03-16T09:59:00.000-04:00

Not much really happened over the weekend. Joe had his swimming banquet on Sunday. He got a trophy for the most improved swimmer out of his group (boys 11-12). He is excited about swimming over the summer and being on the team again next year. He wants to go to the swimming camp over at Edinboro University this summer, I hope we'll have the money for it, it's expensive! He wants to do both sessions, but we'll have to see.

After the banquet we went to Wal*Mart to get the boys some tennis rackets. They are on the tennis team at school and they didn't have rackets. Well, Joe had a really old one I got at a yard sale, LOL!! The coach called it an antique that would be best served hanging on a wall!! LOL!!!! Okay, so they need new rackets! Of course the boys played with them in the living room for about 45 mintues before bed, thank God nothing broke! LOL!

We are STILL waiting for Joe's glasses to come in. He is REALLY wanting them so he can see at school. It will be 2 weeks tomorrow!! SIGH!!

Oh, the Geeks called about Joe's laptop and said it was a memory problem and Dell won't let them fix it so they had to ship it to Dell and we won't see the computer for 2-4 weeks!! Joe was NOT thrilled, but what can you do. CJ's power cord died and that is an $80 fix unless I find a cheaper one. Battiers and cords are not under warrenty. Bummer!

Still Feeling Blah!

2009-03-12T09:35:00.000-04:00

I was REALLY sick on Tuesday, Wed. I felt a little better and today I feel much better. I didn't workout on Tuesday but tried on Wed. and only made it for 27 minutes on the treadmill. Today I did my full 45 minutes though not quiet as fast as I usually go.

Yesterday the school nurse called me to come get CJ, in gym they were running and he almost passed out and had to go home. I sent him to school today and we'll see if he makes it past gym class again. Something about it being state law you have to have a doctor excuse to get out of gym, me calling did nothing. I hope he'll be okay. Colds seem to really wipe us out. Thank God Joe seems okay. He takes vitamins every day, maybe CJ and I should too! For some reason CJ didn't want to eat the gummies every morning, LOL! But this is the first year that Joe hasn't been sick for the entire winter!

The boys, well Joe, has started Tennis. The first practice was yesterday but CJ was sick at home. So, now we are back to being supper busy with Tennis every day but the both will miss some practices cuz of music and gymnastics.

Oh, I took Joe's computer in to Best Buy and gave it to the Geek Squad. I should hear back in a few days. They said they would fix it no problem and that I wouldn't have to pay anything. That was good news! CJ's power cord died and when they call I am going to ask them if that is covered too since a new one is $80!

Well, that's about all that's been going on since I last wrote.

Sick

2009-03-08T16:34:00.000-04:00

Well, CJ and I have been sick all weekend long. I sound HORRIBLE!!! I don't feel so hot either. We both woke up sick again today (just colds) and Joe wasn't on the schedule to work in "Power Hour" so we all just stayed home from Church. I have been watching TV most of the day. All four of us did play a game of hearts and then a game of tri-Ominos.

Joe's computer took a crap today and it's only 5 months old!!!! ARG!!! It kept crashing, so I tried to put it back to an early time but it kept on crashing so I went to restore to factory settings and it's totally messed up now. I have reformatted it before but this time it's really bad! I am hoping I can still fix it enough that he can use it till I have money to take it to someone that knows what they are doing. I have no clue why his computer has been giving us fits. I HATE computer problems, they give me a tummy ache!

Joe's glasses haven't come in yet and I he can't wait. He can't wait to be able to see again, LOL! All this rain we've been having bites! SIGH! Nothing else has happened since the last time.

Hey Mom, Congrats on passing your test!! YEAH!!!!! I bet you are SO relieved to have that behind you! WAY TO GO!!!!

My water is back!

2009-03-04T20:11:00.000-05:00

Finally, after being in the upper 30's today our water unfroze around 2pm. I did up all the dishes and will do all the laundry tomorrow. Both boys took a shower tonight too. Glad to have it back, it really sucks being without water.

Nothing else is really new since the last time I posted. Tonight I had Lucy out on my bed and I believe she is blind now, which would be why she walks funny in her cage. I would move my hand really fast into her face while she was eating without touching her but coming really close and she never moved or looked. I tried very hard to get her to see me but I don't think she can. It's hard losing a pet, even if it's just a rat. I hate watching pets slowly deteriorate. Really sucks!

Well, the next few days it will be in the 50's so that will be a nice change from the single digits we've had this week. I am hoping this is the last of the cold weather, for some reason I am really ready for spring to come. I usually love winter but this time I have had enough already. Some days I really wish I was back in South Florida!! LOL!! I used to complain about the sunny and gorgeous weather we had EVERY SINGLE DAY! I would have loved to have a cold and cloudy day back then, LOL!!

Well, gotta go pick the boys up from Youth Group. Hope everyone is having a great day!

Tuesday Stuff

2009-03-03T16:29:00.000-05:00

Well, last night our water froze AGAIN!!!! ARG!!!!! Okay, this summer I am putting on new heat tape and wrapping the damn thing in insulation! This is nuts! I had to go next door for a pot of water to make spaghetti for supper! I hope it warms up enough to thaw the pipes out. This is so annoying!

Took Joe into the eye doctor today and yup, he needs to wear glasses all the time now. He can't see far away. Happened almost over night around Christmas time. This is the second time his eyes have changed like that. This time though we had to go with the "free" pair that the insurance will pay for and they aren't very nice looking, they aren't bad but they aren't great either. It will cost $105 to put the lenses into Joe's glasses that he already has and likes. I don't see why the insurance can't pay for the lenses and I will pay to put them in??? ARG!!!! This will help Joe see better at school though. We have to wait a week till they come in.

Lucy is sick. She is our pet rat and she is VERY thin and I have no idea what's wrong with her. I guess rats live from 2-4 years. We've had her now for 2 and she may have been over a year old when we got her so maybe she is just old? SIGH!!! Poor Luce Goose!! When you hold her she is all bones. I held her tonight and she wolfed down some spaghetti so she is eating. Her fur isn't right either.

Oh, last month Joe got a D on his monthly book report and we told him he better get an A on this months. He got it back today and got a 105/100!! YA!! He was very happy about that and so was I.

Movie Night

2009-02-28T21:32:00.000-05:00

Tonight Chuck and I went to "Movie Night" at church. We saw "Fireproof" and if you are married I would highly suggest that you go see it!!! It's SO good!!! I don't know how Chuck liked it but I LOVED it!!

The crying babies drove me a little batty but overall it was a fun night. Next month they are showing a movie we have already seen so we won't be going. I have been wanting to see "Fireproof" for some time but I had to shut my netflix off since I can't afford it right now so I'm so glad the church showed it!

All my friends were saying how much they enjoyed it and I can see why, it's a wonderful movie and it makes me want to go out and get the book. They had the book in a gift basket but I didn't win it, at 17 year old single girl did! LOL!! Oh well!

Nothing new happened this week, tis why I haven't posted in a while. Chuck is doing really well and he has been getting work calls, it's waiting on the darn insurance companies to come through with money!! He has one but we haven't heard from any of the others. His leg is doing so much better and he's actually walking in the woods now. Slowly but he's out there!

Gymnastics Meet, Feb. 21, 2009

2009-02-28T17:55:00.000-05:00

Here is CJ at his last gymnastics meet on the 21st. He got a blue all around and did really well. Ignore the swimming you see in this video, I'm not a pro LOL!! He didn't do as well on the horse and mushroom and the floor but all the rest he got a blue ribbon on.

CJ's Gymnastics Meet

2009-02-23T21:00:00.000-05:00

On Saturday we drove to the west side of Cleveland for CJ's gymnastics meet. The drive there was fine, road where good. CJ did really well and got a lot of blue ribbons. He got a blue overall, so he did really well.

We got there at 4:30 and we left at 8:00. When we came outside it was snowing. CRAP! My front tires are partly bald and water and slush make me go all over the place. Let me tell you that was the worst night of my life!! It took me 2 hours to get home which is only 30 mintues more then it took me to get there but I was SO SO SO SO stressed out!!! My whole body hurt by the time I got home. My hands where asleep from gripping the wheel so hard, I lost my voice and I never even spoke all the way home! That was some scary shit!!!

When we were only 30 minutes from home a blizzard hit and I could barely see a thing! I had to keep telling myself that I was going to make it, that I was fine, I was doing great, only 3 more exits to go, etc. When I got off the interstate I was almost crying with relief! It was wonderful to pull into the driveway.

Chuck said that we HAVE to fix my tires and get the truck aligned. It's so bad!! :( It wasn't till we were home that I found out I couldn't talk! I had to use the heating pad on my lower back as it hurt really bad. I didn't get to sleep till after midnight either.

I will post his videos sometime when I have the time to upload them. Takes hours you know!

CJ and the ER

2009-02-23T20:41:00.000-05:00

Took CJ to the ER last night. He had a sore on his leg that he thought was a pimple and it got worse on Saturday during his gymnastics meet. When he got home he put a hot cloth on it and popped it and drained it. I told him if it was worse the next day I would have it looked at. So, I did and it was AWFUL!! It's a nasty boil and the skin was really red all around it as big as my palm!

So, took him in and the bed beside us was a little boy getting a stitch in his lip, he feel down the stairs. He was SO cute! He never cried and talked the whole time! Then the doctor left and I figured he'd come right back in, WRONG! We waited 45 minutes till he came back and CJ said, "So, did you go on lunch break?" LOL!!!! He looked annoyed and said, "I have 9 other rooms besides this one, you know." Then CJ's cell phone goes off and he said, "Oh, gotta text." and pulls his phone out and reads his text dismissing the doctor, LOL!! The doctor said, "Well, I'll let you get that and I'll work on some stuff and come back." He was gone for 30 minutes!!!!! LOL!!!!!

CJ said, "Well, he can't take a joke." We know the ER doctor cuz CJ is there a lot but this guy was new. I told CJ to just keep his trap shut this time and NO PHONE!! LOL! The doctor was just outside at his desk LOL!!

Anyway, they gave him a few shots to numb the area and then broke it open and drained it. Put him on antibotics and an antibotic cream to put on it. They took a sample to be sure it's not staph infection as that is and has been going around, around here. I think it's just an infected hair root, we'll know in 3 days.

It looks MUCH better today. No more puss so I think it will clear right up. That area hurt really bad all night and day. I gave him an excuse from PE today. Here he is right after the doctor was done with him.

Rough Day

2009-02-21T13:10:00.000-05:00

I got sick today around lunch time. My head started to hurt, I was shaky and a little nauseous and I just felt horrible. I spent the whole day on the couch watching TV till it was time to leave. I never do that! I left a little early because we needed some food for the weekend so I went to Save-A-Lot before I got the boys from school. I got to the school a little early and while I was waiting I got sicker. I didn't think I would be able to drive home. At 2:19 I remembered that Joe had an eye appointment in town at 2pm. I totally forgot!! I called but they couldn't see him since we missed his appointment. I felt SO bad!!! He really wanted to get his eyes checked, he thinks his prescription changed. He is having a hard time seeing at school. He can't get back in till March 3 at 11:15am now. I still feel bad about that. It's on the calendar and I knew about it all week long! I was just so sick today that I totally forgot!

I did mange to make it home and the boys brought in the food. I went right to bed and stayed there till morning! I feel fine today even went to SNAP and worked out today. I have no idea why I was so sick. I wonder if I'm having a hard time with my blood sugar levels and that is what is making me so sick, no idea. I had oatmeal and a pear before working out and did just fine.

I still have to find a low cholesterol diet because the doctor wants me to follow one. I need to get my cholesterol down or I'll end up with a stroke or heart attack at 40! SHEESH!! I can't believe it went up so high. Here is what I have found:

Less than 200	Desirable level that puts you at lower risk for coronary heart disease. A cholesterol level of 200 or higher raises your risk.
200 to 239	Borderline high
240 and above	High blood cholesterol. A person with this level has more than twice the risk of coronary heart disease as someone whose cholesterol is below 200.

So, why isn't the doctor concerned with my cholesterol number? He is more worried about my blood sugar levels. No idea but I am going to ask him when I see him on the 13th. He's on vacation right now for 2 weeks so I'll have to wait.

Blood Work Results and Other Stuff

2009-02-19T16:18:00.000-05:00

Okay, my blood work came back and yup my cholesterol is high, 272. Highest it's been. It was 255 so now it's even higher. Guess I better go on a strict diet!! Get this, you know how I ate that whole bag of doughnuts? Well, my blood sugar was low! It was 64 and it should be 75-106. So, I have to have blood work done again in 3 weeks and if it's low again I guess I'll be going on med's. I told the nurse about how I ate that whole bag of doughnuts and wouldn't you think that would make it go up? She wondered how low my blood sugar went to make me that sick and for it to be that low even with all those doughnuts! YIKES!!

Chuck was supposed to go to the doctor today, we woke up to some major snow. He got up with me and we dropped the boys off at school but we only made it one exit and we turned around and came back home. It was too bad out to make it the hour and a half there and back. Good thing, it snowed all day long. We rescheduled for next Thursday at 3pm. Chuck will drive himself since I have to get the boys and do gym and swimming that evening.

Joe is still giving me grief. It's odd, CJ does everything you ask him, no complaints, does it right away, don't have to remind him, etc. Joe is the exact opposite. Today, after school, they have 1 hour before we leave. I told Joe he was NOT allowed on the computer and he was NOT allowed to do NOTHING he had to either 1. do his homework, 2. do his violin, 3. read his book. So, he went into his room to "read" and slept instead. SO, he's now grounded for a week from his computer and had to stay home tonight instead of going swimming to get his music, homework and reading done. I wonder if he'll do any of it. He works VERY hard at doing as little as possible. It's always been like this. One of them is always causing me grief. If CJ is being horrible the Joe is great and when CJ is great Joe is horrible!! Been that way all through homeschooling them. They could never be great at the same time!! ARG!! Getting Joe to do ANYTHING is like pulling teeth!!!

Speaking of teeth, Joe went in for his first orthodontic appointment on Wednesday. It will be a 2 1/2 year proccess and first they are going to widen his top jaw, I think. That is a retainer that has a key and you turn it every week and it widedens in the middle. Then braces will go on after that I think. All told it's $4,300.00 but we are hoping that our insurance will cover it but we won't know that till summer. I have no idea what takes so long to be approved but it does.

I called XM radio to have my radio shut off since I can't afford the payment this month and they gave me 3 months for free if I chose not to cancel! LOL! I said, sure why not! I don't have to pay till May 19th. I LOVE my radio and would have really missed it.

Tuesday Ramblings

2009-02-17T10:58:00.000-05:00

I don't know how the days get away from me. Here it is Tuesday already. I had a doctor appointment today and had blood work done. We'll see how it turns out tomorrow. I know my cholesterol is high, it always has been. I just wonder how high it is. He didn't put me on med's last time but if it's still high he might this time.

In Church on Sunday, my bra broke! LOL!! I wear under wires and the wire came through poking me so here I am sitting there and I had to take it out, hope no one noticed! Then I noticed that my boobs where uneven! LOL!! I hope no one noticed that either!! LOL!!! I hate when my bras do that!! It's not the first time but it is the first time it happend in church!

I did manage to bake those cookies and I tried to bake bread but it was a disaster! I set the timer for 2 hours to let it raise but I forgot to start it!!! I remembered hours later and the dough was out of the bread pan and all the way to the bottom of the oven! So, I put it all back in and let it re-raise with a timer this time. Then I baked it only to find out that it stuck to the sides so bad it all tore apart. ARG!! So, I still need to bake another loaf of bread. We'll use this one for dinner adn stuff but can't for sandwiches. How frustrating!! I can't seem to remember anything!! The cookies were really good though!

Then on Monday I forgot to eat lunch and got really sick when Joe was swimming at the Y. I had a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast and then forgot to eat lunch and took Joe swimming from 3:30 to 5:00. I shopped at Walmart and was fine but when I got to the Y I started to feel really bad. Headache, nausous, light headed, sweating, just really bad!! Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and made my way to the truck and then proceed to eat a whole bag of Chocoloate covered doughnuts!! LOL!! I felt way better in about 15 minutes and was fine for the drive home. I wish I had boughten some fruit or something, LOL! Even crackers would have been better but I had no choice I was so sick there was no way I could have driven home. I hate when that happens!!

Long Weekend

2009-02-15T08:44:00.000-05:00

Well, our power came back on Friday evening. Our generator ran out of gas and I went out to go get more and noticed that all the neighbors had lights on and no one was running generators any more. So, I'm glad I didn't have to spend another $10 for gas! We flipped some switches and we had power again. Thank goodness!

So, the boys didn't have school on Friday because it was parent/teacher conference day and they don't have school on Monday either. So, they have a very long weekend since there was no school on Thursday because of the power outages. They are mostly playing the new game world of warcraft. They each bought themselves the game and it comes with a 30 day playing limit. This is a pay as you go game. I think it's $15 a month to play. I told them I am NOT paying that, so they have to pay for it themselves. They will have jobs this summer and then they can play again. LOL!

Saturday night we went over to the neighbors house for cake and ice cream. We stayed for 2 hours and when we got home all of us had to shower and I washed everything we were wearing! I hate when people smoke inside and they live in a smaller trailer then we do! This is the neighbors that used to scream cuss words at us as we drove by. We are trying to make them sort of friends so we don't have to put up with that any more. I invited them over to our big picnic on July 28th 2008 and since then it's been much better. The kids come over and I get them music off the net for their MP3 players and the Dad is getting there though he won't wave when we pass at least the swearing and screaming has stopped LOL!

I feel like being lazy today. We have church this morning and then we'll just come home and have lunch, watch TV and lay around. Sounds good to me! I need to make some cookies and bread today. We'll see if that happens. I have a REALLY good no-bake recipe that I have been making. Usually when I make them they taste yucky but this one I got from a lady at church and it's really good! But I should make some peanut butter ones too today.

Bad Wind Storm

2009-02-12T19:27:00.000-05:00

Wednesday night while the boys were at church there was an awful wind storm. Chuck and I were on our laptops at the kitchen table when around 8:20pm the power went out. The wind was really howling and shaking our home! I didn't want to go get the boys but I went out to get them right away. I was sure the power went out at the church too. While I was heading down there I saw way we had no power. There were 10 telephone poles all broken in half like toothpicks all in a row into the road!!! I had to drive over the lines!! YIKES!!

Got the boys and yup, no power at the church either, and we head back the same way so I could show the boys the downed lines and we come up to a house just past the downed poles on the other side of the road that had a HUGE tree on top of it!! Man, things are bad out!

Got home and got our generator out and hooked up. I opened the stove and turned it on for the night to keep us warm.

The next day I started up the generator so we could have power for the tv and computers. Gotta have those. Oh, and school was canceled, thank god! We all went to lunch today and I got to take some pictures of what it looks like around here!

Here is the downed tree by the downed lines. I took all these pictures with my phone through my windshield so they aren't the best.

Here is one of the phone poles that was down. There are 10 of these all in a row down the road.

Here is tree down in town.

So, here it is Friday and we still have no power. They are just now finishing up down the road with the phone poles. I hope we have electric soon running off a generator sucks as it can't handle the whole house. I am heating the house with the stove and the boys have to sleep in the living room as it's just to cold in their rooms.

But, Chuck got a roofing job and some inside work too from this storm!! YA!!!! No, he won't be on the roof :)

Update and stuff

2009-02-09T20:10:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, it's been a while since I have written anything. Guess I have been busy or just didn't want to complain all the time on here! LOL! Let's see, Joe had a swim meet on Saturday at the University of Akron and the pool was HUGE! 16 lanes! Had to get up at 5:30am to be there by 8:00am. Thank goodness Chuck just sold a cord of wood so I had gas and money to eat with. Joe has been working on his 200 free and he got disqualified by not touching the pool edge when he turned. He turned too early and was at least a foot away. I felt SO bad for him!! He took it really well though. He was really upset but didn't throw a fit. He did well with his other events and placed really high in the relay. He went home with a friend after the meet so I drove home by myself. CJ went to stay with a friend too so Chuck and I had the house to ourselves that night. All we did was watch TV I was SO tired! Went to be at 8pm LOL!

Then on Sunday Chuck and I went shopping. Nice to have food in the house again. That took about 4 hours. I can understand how Kitty feels about hating to shop!! Gosh, if I could, I would shop for the whole month too. We do about 2 weeks at a time. Chuck is doing much better so he wasn't too bad but then we went got to Lowes he rode in those electric carts LOL!

Chuck is walking around the house without crutches but not really walking more like hobbling. He can't bend at the ankle normally yet I guess. When he is outside he wears his air cast but not always with crutches.

In a Funk

2009-02-04T16:19:00.001-05:00

Meant to write a long time ago. I have a video of CJ's gymnastics meet that I wanted you all to see but it takes HOURS to upload!! I will have to let it run over night some time. He did really well though.

Nothing much has gone on this week. Chuck is walking around the house without crutches. When he goes out he wears the air cast and uses his crutches.

I called about getting state aid cash and found out that I can get $556 a month if we work 55 hours a week. We would be making about $2.50 a hour. I guess that is one way to try and keep people of cash assistance! Come next week we'll have about $50 and that's it. It's been scary. I hope we can find some way to bring in something to keep gas in my truck. We have both been depressed about our money situation this month. Nothing we can do though and I'm sure we'll be fine even if we lose everything, we'll still be okay. Thank God, I own my truck and the house we live in.

We've been having problems with Joe and that hasn't been helping. He is SO lazy! He got a D on his book report and thinks that is fine because he'll still pull off a B in the class. ARG!! He just does only what he has too or less. He's also very defiant, mouthy and angry. We have him in counseling at the church and we both go too. I hope it helps. I'm so stressed out!! Most days I just want to cry.

Well, hopefully I'll get that video uploaded and you all can see what CJ can do!

Day for Doctors

2009-01-30T20:06:00.000-05:00

I kept Joe home today as he could barely breath and his ears hurt. I told him to go back to bed. I took him to the doctors at 11:30am and no ear infection, just a really bad head and chest cold. I'm glad about that. I hate when his ears are infected. So, came back home for a bit and then back to the school to get CJ and head off to Cleveland for his neurology appointment. The doctor wants him to try and go off the headache med's and see if his headaches come back. If they do, then he is to go back on them. So, we will try that here soon. Last time we tried he had awful headaches.

We have been approved for the state medical card, all of us, so it was nice that all the medicine and doctor appointments were paid for. CJ is on expensive med's for ADD that we pay $146 a month for. The doctor gave us a 90 day script for it a while back and I couldn't get it as it's $450 script!! So she gave me a few 30 day ones. Anyway, I took that 90 day script and filled it today. That was nice. I have enough med's now to last all school year. I don't know how long we'll be on state medicare but it will be nice.

I got Chuck's sleeping med's today too. The doctor gave him some to help him sleep. He'll go days with no sleep or just some here and there. The doctor thinks that once he is up and moving more again all day it will get better. I hope so cuz he keeps me up!!

It's been a year!

2009-01-28T19:42:00.000-05:00

Well, a year ago today I went to the APL and picked up Sandy!!! She has been with us for a whole year! Man, has it been that long? I remember the very long potty training! It was horrible!! Come to find out she had a bladder infection and that is why she could only hold her pee for 10 minutes! Man, what a pain! Once that was fixed it was much better.

We got SLAMMED with snow today but we had school anyway. Come to find out we were the ONLY school to have school in this area! They got out 1 hour early. Mr. Lyon canceled for music today and Church canceled too so we, for once, have a nice quiet evening at home! We watched some tv, played dice and just relaxed.

I had to shovel at least 5 times today. Must have gotten over 18" of snow! Sandy drives me nuts and I'll have to video tape her. She LOVES getting snow thrown in her face from the shovel. When you are shoveling she will actually get mad if your NOT throwing snow in her face. She will bark at you until you throw the snow right in her face. LOL!! She is a nut! She was outside most of the day. She LOVES the snow!

Here is my "Baby Peter" sleeping on our couch. He's just SO cute!!

New Week

2009-01-26T20:21:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we had our friends over for lunch. They came at 1:20 and we sat down to lasagna, corn, rolls, pasta salad, and yummy cake! It was a great lunch! Then us adults played a dice game called "Can't Stop" and I won all three times!! That never happens! The three girls watched the boys play video games. Joe played his violin and piano, CJ mostly just lay down all day as he still wasn't feeling too well.

Today, I did some work on my blogs. I wrote some articles, one of which took me all morning and then my computer froze up and crashed to a blue screen and I lost it all!! The program I use to write them in doesn't save, which sucks! But, it only took me 20 minutes to write it up again. Get this, I usually make between 0-.10 a day on adsense but today I made .96 so far! LOL!! Well, it's something anyway! I started another blog today so I'm up to 5 blogs. 3 have posts that go till the end of Feb. the other 2 don't have any yet. Just getting them set up.

Chuck has a doctor appointment tomorrow at 8:30am which means we all leave here at 6:45am, drop the boys off at school and drive the hour and a half down to the doctors office. Chuck said the past 10 days have been the best and he has seen the most improvement. :)

Joe's Swim Meet

2009-01-25T08:57:00.000-05:00

Took Joe to his swim meet yesterday. At least this one was here in Ashtabula. He was really looking forward to seeing what his time would be on his 200 Free and he was doing really good and then the coach started yelling "Go, go, go" which means he is on his last lap and to really push it. When he got to the end he jumped out only to find out that he had another lap to go and because he got out of the water he was disqualified. He cried! He was so upset. He said he lost track too and doesn't blame the coach too much. I felt so bad and so did everyone there! I think he'll be doing the 200 at the next one of the 7th. This next meet, if you place in the top 25 then you go on to the next one and that will be the last one of the year. Then they have a couple months off and they start back up in the summer but will only have one meet this is just to stay in shape. Some of those practices are from 6-7am!! YIKES! Like I want to get up that early during summer vacation! SIGH!!

Today we have friends coming over for lunch. I'm making the birthday dinner. That is what she wanted really bad anyway she said, LOL! I've known Chris since 2nd grade. Her husband and mine like to hunt together. There is no football games today, thank God, so the TV won't be blaring. I HATE having the TV on when we have people over but Chuck likes it that way. His Dad always did that so it's what he knows I guess. I think it's just plain rude! She has 3 girls so my house will be full of noise today, I'm sure!

I'm not going to church today because I didn't get the lasagna made yesterday. Came home late from the meet and I made pizza and we watched TV till bed. So, I have to make the lasagna this morning and through the cake together.

BTW, Candy, your kitchen looks FABULOUS!!!! Man, I wish I had your kitchen!! I remember what it did look like and this one is just GORGEOUS!!!!! So worth every penny!!

Frustrating!

2009-01-23T07:30:00.001-05:00

Chuck's brother Dave has been busting his butt trying to get out the big order Chuck got for wood all week. He's new at this and isnt' very fast. He didn't get it all done but they were running out of material so yesterday the dropped off what they had done and were going to work on the rest of the order next week. Well, when they dropped it off the company said, hey this will do for now we'll call you when we get low again. We lost $3,600.00 because of that. They have done that before when Chuck took in less then what they asked for. They will be fine for about 6 weeks so that just totally screwed us. We are behind in everything and this was going to help us not lose our stuff. Chuck was so mad and I'm just frustrated.

CJ is home sick today. Yesterday he had a stomache ache and a headache and his back hurts. He didn't go to gymnastics last night, he went right to bed with his computer after school and stayed there all night. This morning I got him up and he was still sick so I just kept him home. I sure hope he doesn't have the flu which seems to be going around at the school.

Another Wednesday

2009-01-21T21:21:00.000-05:00

Not much really to say. Just thought I'd check in. Nothing special is going on or has. Kids are doing there same old stuff and I'm driving them here and there. Chuck and his brother Dave are trying very hard to get an order done up by tomorrow so that we can get some money in. I got my money from the APL so that was nice. Got to pay my cell phone bill and some other stuff. We haven't heard yet if we all qualify for Medical from the state yet. I hope we all do, that would help out so much! We did get help with food stamps right away so we are at least eating!

Chuck and I saw a counselor today about Joe. We are worried about him and his anger and mouthy-ness. She thinks he may just have a form of ADD but not the hyper kind. So, we filled out a paper and we are having him and one of his teachers fill one out too. He has told me that he has a VERY hard time paying attention in class and he is extremely forgetful to the point of crying and thinking badly about himself for it. So, once the papers are filled out we will go from there. Joe will be seeing the counselor too, and I really hope it helps because he hasn't been doing very well emotionally, poor kid! But if this were to help I bet he would feel much better. CJ did, he could finally focus and he realized that he really wasn't dumb that he really was smart he just had a hard time with focusing. We should know more next week.

Weekend Stuff

2009-01-18T19:05:00.000-05:00

CJ came home about 5:30pm today. Said he had a great time and wished he could go again next weekend! LOL! He'll have to wait a year!

Joe came home around 2pm. He stayed the night with his friend Harding. He did well at his swim meet yesterday. He didn't sleep much so I bet he'll sleep in tomorrow. No school since it's Martin Luther King Jr. day.

I didn't do much today. I worked on my blogs and then I made two double batches of cookies. I made peanut butter chocolate chip and just peanut butter. Joe doesn't like chocolate so I usually end up making both kinds. House smells really good though!

OH, our water came on at 7:50am this morning!! YEAH!!! We spent about $3o in gas to run the turbo heater for 2 days! I can't believe it took that long to get our water back! I must remember to turn on the faucet when it goes below 20 degrees! I had a PILE of dishes to do and it took me over 40 minutes to get them all done too. Now I am doing them again but at least when I go to bed my house will be clean and the toilet will be flushed!! LOL!!

The neighbor came by and plowed our driveway. Kevin is so nice, he does ours every time it needs it. We used to do his for about 3 years so now he is doing ours.

Well, I think that is about it. I don't really go anywhere and I really don't do much but work on my blogs so not much to chat about.

Frozen Pipes

2009-01-16T13:53:00.000-05:00

LOL!! My sister Candy just emailed me and said my FeedJit over on the right side of my blog is filling up with people searching for info on frozen pipes!! LOL!! I guess I'm not the only one with this problem today. You know, I thought to myself last night that I should let the water run over night so this wouldn't happen, but I didn't do it! I HATE when I don't listen to myself!! Dave is under the trailer now with the torpedo heater and hopefully the ice will break up and we'll have water again. It was -13 when I got up and it's up to 5 now though that could be wrong as where I have the thermometer is sort of in the sun. I really must move that thing on the other side of the deck stairs!

CJ is gone. Took him to the church at 11:30 for his weekend of fun with the youth group. He will be swimming, bowling, lazer tag, pizza parties, all kinds of fun stuff all weekend. At least they have Monday off from school so he can recoup from all the fun.

I take Joe swimming in about an hour. I should call and make sure it's still a go. I hate driving all the way there for NOTHING!

I'm so mad!!

2009-01-16T07:07:00.000-05:00

Man, I was exhausted when the alarm went off at 5:45am but I got up and checked the computer to see if school was closed. I check Channel 3's website. I always have. Every school but ours was closed. I couldn't believe it! Dang, it's -12 out and there is school. I check it again at 6am and still our school wasn't listed so I got the boys up, they got dressed and we watched some TV and they ate and I packed lunches. Then I put the news on before we left to find out our school IS CLOSED!!!!!! We all could have stayed sleeping!!!!!! CJ has a trip he's going on and he leaves at 11:30. Today was a half day of school anyway. I am SO MAD!!! I could have just went right back to bed and left the boys alone if they would have listed our school!!!!! It was on channel 19 that had our school closing. ARG!!! Now, we are all wide awake and can't go back to sleep. This just really pisses me off cuz I haven't been sleeping much this week because Chuck can't sleep. He toss and turns all night long and I get NO sleep!! Last night he took 2 sleeping pills and actually slept all night long, ARG!! I'm so mad there is no way I can go back to bed anyway. Needless to say, I now have bookmarked Channel 19's school closing and I will check them all next time!!

Long Day

2009-01-13T16:23:00.000-05:00

Today was a very long day and it's only 4:30pm. Got up at 5:45am and got the boys ready for school and then got Chuck up and we all left the house at 7:00am. Dropped the boys off at school and then went into Ashtabula to sign up for medical assistance from the state. We still have to turn in some paper work but it looks like they will pay for all Chuck's medical bills and we'll probably get medical cards for the boys! That would be wonderful because CJ's medicine is almost $200 a month!! We also got emergency food stamps and will have them by the weekend and I can go shopping! We'll get $588 a month while Chuck isn't working. I hate that we need the help but we really do need the help.

After that we got Chuck's drivers license because he has no ID since his wallet was taken. Then I stopped at the library for a book for CJ. Then we drove to the school and gave the book to CJ for his English class. Then I took Chuck over to a shop here in town that buys wood from him and he got a nice order!!! YEAH!! So, Dave will start on that and by next week we'll have a check!! It's something anyway.

I have decided not to take the boys out tonight. I was supposed to have Joe in Fairview for JR. Phil and CJ in Ashtabula for Gymnastics. But the weather got really bad and I am just going to stay home. Joe has never missed a practice but it won't hurt this once and I'm saving a TON on gas!

I didn't do anything with my blogs yet today. They are on autopilot though and have posts going up every day. One though I only have set up for the next couple of days so I have to get some more posts written and set up. You're supposed to have 6 months worth of posts done before you move on to the next blog. I have three up and 2 have 1 month worth of posts and one has maybe 3 more days worth. LOL!! BUT, I have mine posting every day for the first month instead of twice a week. They say to write about 60 posts and have them go up every third day adn then every fourth and then every third and then every fourth, you get the idea. LOL!

Loud Sunday

2009-01-11T20:16:00.000-05:00

Man, it was loud here today. The TV was on 25 or higher with football, screaming kids, UGH!! Chuck had Matt come home with us from church. If it were up to me he would have never come over. He's 9 and very loud and hyper. They had fun but man just being in a mobile home it's awful! I usually have the TV on 10 - 12 if I am home alone so 25 is LOUD to me!! He just went home at 8pm and the boys are in their rooms reading their books. Lights out at 9pm here and we watch tv and lights out at 10pm. It's been such a long day!!

I am thinking of moving my blog over to my own .com. I'm thinking www.marsharozalski.com sounds good to me. Then I can use wordpress and do what I want with my blog and make it look however I want it too. So, I may just do that sometime in the near future. It will cost $10 for the domain name and that's it since I already have a host.

I have been looking into blogging professionally LOL!! I love blogging and have joined a group that does it for money. Thought I'd give it a try since it really doesn't cost anything but time. Would be nice to make some extra money doing something I like. We'll see how it goes. It's something that takes time to build up so I am giving myself a year!

Well, not much else really going on here. Chuck is doing fine and is up more. He went to church with us today and it was nice to get out of the house and see everyone again. It's been since Dec. 14th since we've been there. He is off the pain med's now and just takes aleeve now. He is finding it very hard to sleep at night so I have been giving him sleeping pills to help him and ME get some sleep at night. It's been helping. If he still has problems sleeping we will talk to his doctor about it when we go back.

Lazy Saturday

2009-01-10T12:36:00.000-05:00

I canceled my night out with friends because of this big storm we were supposed to get. The roads stayed clear all night and I could have went, BUMMER!! I really wanted to go. Chuck wanted out of the house so we went over to his parents house for a couple hours. The boys played video games with their cousins and we played cards. It was fun but we ate WAY to much junk food!! I haven't been keeping any here and have fruit out on the counter to eat so we got SO SICK last night!! UGH!!

Joe's swim meet was canceled and so was CJ's gymnastics meet so I didn't have to worry about finding rides for them. My cars front tires are bald and showing wires and the alignment is REALLY bad so taking it out in the snow isn't my favorite thing to do.

The boys wanted to go back over to my in-laws today to continue playing video games with their counsins. So, I dropped them off this morning and will get them later tonight. Right now we are sitting on the couch watching a really dumb movie. I haven't spent this much time on the couch in my life! Thank God for my computer!

Chuck's Update

2009-01-06T16:01:00.000-05:00

Took Chuck to the doctor today. He got an air walking cast. Amazing! He can actually put about 25% weight on it. Helps with his balance. He is to stretch his foot forward and back to help with stretching and blood flow. Doc said it will be a good 2 months before he's back to work. I have no idea what we'll do. We haven't found anyone to cut for us and of course his partner, Neal, couldn't give a crap about us so he's no help. I'm a bit stressed over how in the world we'll be able to pay our bills, keep gas in the truck and eat.

We, again, spent 3 hours at the doctors office and 95% of that was waiting around!! SUCKS!!! The next time we go in they made our appointment first thing so we can get right in. We'll see if we actually do!

I took some pictures of his leg when they took his cast off. A bit disturbing so you don't have to look if you don't want too! He got all the staples and stitches out, and he's happy about that!!! The stitches in the middle of his leg is where the bone busted through. The staples on his ankle and knee is where they cut him open to insert the rod and screws. EEWW!!!

I missed lunch with the girls again this week. I really miss seeing everyone!! WAAAAA!!!!

My 100th Post!!!!!!

2009-01-03T19:37:00.000-05:00

Go me!!! This is my 100th post!!! Boo Ya!!

So, today I had to run some errands. I needed to go to the post office but when I got there it was closed. I forgot today was Saturday. All my days feel the same! I had to return a video that CJ bought that he just doesn't like, but I grabbed the wrong receipt so that didn't happen! But I managed to get groceries and got all our prescriptions filled. Now, I have to go out on Monday to the post office and take back that video!

Chuck wanted to get out of the house tonight. He is going crazy sitting on the couch all day long watching tv all day long! So, we went and watched a movie, LOL!!! But, it was really good. It was "Bedtime Stories" with Adam Sandler. It was SO GOOD!!! I laughed all the way through it! That genie pig is so hilarious!!

Well, tomorrow is the last day of winter break and the boys go back to school. What I don't like is all the activities start back up! I'll be gone every night but Wednesday. This Saturday both boys have meets and they are both away. Not sure what I'm going to do!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T11:02:00.000-05:00

Well, it's finally 2009 and my first post of the new year. The boys went to a friends house last night so Chuck and I ended up going to bed around 10pm. We watched TV for an hour and then went to sleep. I don't know when the boys will be home. I told them to call me when they were ready to come home.

I am now ready for my life to get back to some kind of schedule. It might be because Chuck is home all day every day. I no longer have any "me" time to myself anymore. Even when the boys go back to school Chuck will still be on the couch. He is doing better but the progress is slow. We still haven't found anyone to work in the woods so we have no money coming in yet which sucks big time!

Not much to post about when you never leave the house. I am trying to figure out a new blogging software, wordpress. Keeps me busy and it might be good to learn all the in's and out's of that software. Love YouTube! If you want to know who to do something check it out there because someone has probably made a video on how to do it!

Christmas Party at my Sisters

2008-12-28T18:59:00.000-05:00

We all had a wonderful time over at my sister, Kitty's, house. I LOVE Christmas over there. To me, I actually have more fun there then at home on Christmas morning! My boys loved it too because my cousin John Felix was there and he LOVES video games as do my boys so they hung out all day talking about gaming. Here they are:

Here is my sister, Kitty, opening up her gift. We all play a game with our gifts. We each bring a present and label it male or female and put it under the tree. Then we draw numbers and go in order. You can either pick a gift under the tree or steal a gift someone else has. A gift can be stolen 3 times before it's "dead" and no one else can take it. We all LOVE this game!

Here is Candy doing her gift.Here is Chuck with a gift he wanted but didn't end up taking home. He ended up taking the MP3 player Joe wanted and Joe grabbed the gift I wanted and I ended up with the desk lamp for Chuck. CJ took a borders gift card. We love to scheme and make sure all 4 of us go home with everything we wanted. The tools ended up being stolen 3 times before we could get them back. There were MANY gift cards this year

Here is Joe with my gift that he ended up with:

The boys gave a concert of Christmas music. They played one together with Joe on the piano and CJ on the violin and then they each did two pieces on the violin. Then I had Joe do a fiddle piece and everyone went crazy! He was doing it from memory so he kind of forgot the last part but everyone loved it anyway. I guess maybe next year we will do a different kind of concert with more lively music instead of the same old boring Christmas music! LOL!!

Chuck did pretty good. We got him there in one piece and the ride didn't bother him too much. But as soon as we got home he crashed on the couch. We all had a wonderful time and it's sad that it's over. It goes by so fast!

Christmas Day!

2008-12-25T16:48:00.000-05:00

I told the boys not to even get out of bed till 8am. I finally made it to bed last night at midnight. I woke up with a headache and had it all morning. I am wondering if these are stress headaches as I've had one every day since Chuck got hurt. Anyway, I got up at 8am, but the boys didn't get up till 8:30. I got Chuck up and out to the couch and we unwrapped our gifts.

Joe's main gift was a Sony hand held PSP. I got him some games too. He also got a new pair of shoes, that he needed badly. A new belt, new t-shirt, Steelers calendar, violin case and bow, a gift card to "Game Stop" so he can buy more video games (from his Nana) and some other stuff I can't remember now!

CJ's main gift is a flip camcorder. It records up to an hour and you can put it right onto your computer. He's been wanting a camcorder for a long time. He loved it! It's so small too. He also got all 3 of the "Inkheart" books, which he loves. He got a couple of dragon t-shirts, a dragon calendar, a violin case, a PC game which he's been playing all day, camo pants, camo sleeping pants, muscle shirt for gymnastics, High School Musical movies 1 & 2, a gift card to "Game Stop" so he can buy more video games (from his Nana) and probably some other stuff I can't remember now.

Chuck got a heavy duty 50 ft. electrical cord from CJ, an electric knife sharpener from Joe, a heated massager, underwear, and a new wallet from me. He got a nice blue and red checkered flannel jacket too.

As for me, Joe got me a nice 3 scented candle and a large numbered timer. CJ got me 4 knives and a short heavy duty electrical cord so I can use other things in my kitchen that won't reach the outlet. Chuck got me this really nice clock with a pendulum and it chimes every hour from 6am to 9pm. Of course he didn't know he got me this till I opened it, LOL!! He isn't able to leave the house. I also bought my own Christmas card but he filled the inside himself. This is what he wrote:

You are my angel. I wish I could have helped you so much more this past week. But I couldn't have done a better job. You are the glue that holds this family together. I know that, and now I hope you realize it too. I really appreciate what you do for me, even when I'm not hurt. I could have never done better than you. You are my world. I love my angel, love 4 ever Chuck.

Isn't that just so sweet! Not sure he wanted me to tell the whole world that but I figure what the heck! Just keep it to yourselves, LOL!

Chuck fell asleep right after we opened gifts and got up for something to eat, I made a nice ham dinner, then went back to sleep. He basically still just sleeps all the time but I know his body needs it even though it can be frustrating at times.

The boys are taking showers and then I promised them we'll play cards. They want Chuck to play too but he's so tired all the time I think it will just be us three that play.

So, all and all it was a good Christmas but I must say that I'm glad it's over. I'm looking forward to school starting back up but not looking forward to all the activities after school starting back up. I am wondering how I am going to have Joe in Fairview and CJ in Ashtabula on Tuesday at the same time. SIGH!! CJ has gymnastics and Joe has Jr. Phil. Chuck used to take Joe and I took CJ. I will be gone every evening again and I know Chuck hates that and I do too but at least Joe finishes swimming at the end of January. That will help some, though I like seeing him active. I was hoping swimming went till spring but it doesn't. Jr. Phil ends in the spring. Gymnastics doesn't ever end. I will just have to take each day as it comes.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Eve

2008-12-24T23:39:00.001-05:00

Today I made some doughnuts. I haven't in a long time and thought today was a good day for it. So, Joe helped cut them out and we made doughnuts!

Then I through them in the deep fryer. I know, very unhealthy, but it's Christmas!

Here are the finished doughnuts!

And doughnut holes!
Then I moved on to the cinnamons rolls. First you fight with the dough to get it all rolled out.

Then once you finally get it to this point you add butter and then cinnamon and sugar.

Then roll it up!

Then I use dental floss to cut them into 1 inch pieces. I'm thinking next year that I will do 2 inch pieces next time. They just don't rise like I want them too and then end up small and hard when I cook them.

We watch "The Bucket List" earlier in the day and then before bed we watched "A Christmas Story". We did put up the tree after the fist movie. So here is our tree this year.

Chuck's Appointment and Shopping

2008-12-24T23:26:00.000-05:00

Man, it's been a week and I am wiped out. We got our pipes unfrozen around 8:15pm. We had no water since 10am. I was so happy to have the water back. It's amazing how much you use it when you no longer have it! I had to melt and boil snow to make dinner! LOL!!

I did all my running yesterday. Chuck had a doctor appointment at 10:45 and it took an hour and 20 minutes to get there. The lobby was FREEZING and I had to sit there for 3 hours!! I was frozen! The appointment went well, we got pictures of his x-rays and I could see all the brakes, screws and the rod. The staples are still in but he got a new soft cast put on. It's a bit smaller and lighter then the last one. The trip really wore him out. He slept most the rest of the day. We go back on the 6th.

I spent one hour at home and then took the boys and did the rest of our shopping. I bought a small tree since we don't even have one up yet. Mine is HUGE and really doesn't fit in our trailer. This one is much nicer and doesn't take HOURS to put up. Walmart was packed and I was so stressed cuz I really didn't know what to get Chuck and the boys wanted to know what to get me. SIGH!! Spent over an hour in the store. Joe got a walmart gift card for $10 from him swim team party and he had it in his hoody jacket pocket and someone stole it. You can see right into his pocket and anyone can reach in and take it. I felt bad but again he shouldn't have had it there. He said it's uncomfortable to have things in his back pocket of his jeans. Well, maybe he'll think twice about it next time. I almost took it from him when he showed it to me when we first got there but I was so stressed over what to get everyone that I just didn't. I know I should listen to that voice inside me!! I have kicked myself every time I ignore it!!!!

Well, I got everything I needed and got everyone home. I was beat so I just threw everything in the closet to deal with tomorrow. I didn't want to go anywhere on Christmas Eve.

Frozen Pipes

2008-12-22T15:08:00.000-05:00

Well, got up this morning to find about 3 feet of snow outside and about 2 degrees out. I also flushed the toilet only to find that the water wasn't re-filling in the tank. I went out into our mudroom and found that the heat tape we have wrapped around the water pipe coming into the trailer from the well, was unplugged. I had forgotten all about it and never plugged in in this year! It's been in the single digits all night long. I plugged it back in and 30 minutes later I heard the toilet fill up.

The boys used the bathroom and around 9:30 I filled water up in the large bowl for Chuck's bath. He still has to be washed in bed. We tried to do it at the sink but he was in so much pain that only lasted 5 minutes and we didn't get to wash his hair. So, anyway, got him all cleaned up and then CJ informed me that there was no water! It's now 10am and the water is frozen again. This time it didn't come back on.

My BIL, Dave, came out and is trying to get our water back on. The turbo heater won't start so we can't heat up the pipes to get them going again. I'll have to leave some water running while it's really cold out.

Chuck has his doctor appointment tomorrow and it's over an hour away. Hopefully he'll do okay and everything will go well. I will keep you posted on him and our pipes!

Swim Team Party

2008-12-19T20:22:00.000-05:00

Went to Joe's party tonight. CJ came too because he hasn't been swimming in a long time. We left early so we could stop off at the mall and pick up the gift we needed for the party. We got the boy a gift card for Game Stop.

The food was good. I mostly ate the junk food. CJ ate a ton of junk, at least 10 pieces of fudge! He did have some noodles and meatballs. Joe ran around with his friends and I sat with CJ.

Santa came in and all the kids swarmed all over him for an hour! He is the best looking Santa I have ever seen. His beard and mustache are real so he really does look like Santa!

CJ kept asking when swim time was. After 2 hours someone finally said that it's open swim from 6-9 and CJ could have been swimming the whole time!! I was so mad! Why didn't anyone mention this? They said that after the party there was going to be a fun swim, so I guess open swim was the fun swim. The coach didn't stay for any swimming and most of the kids all went home! I hate how I know nothing of what's going on!!

Update

2008-12-19T12:37:00.000-05:00

Things are going well. Chuck is doing good. He is still in pain, as can be expected. What is weird is when he was hit by the train in 2000, he took 1 pain pill when he came home and nothing after that. This time he has been taking them round the clock. I guess this time it's worse. Last time it was just his ankle, this time it's all his lower leg and his ankle. He gets me up to take some and he NEVER takes med's for anything but a REALLY bad headache so I know he's hurting pretty bad. He's been sleeping on and off the whole time we've been home. He lays on the couch all day and in bed all night. I actually have a headache today from watching so much TV. I have it on but I don't sit and watch it all day, but today I sat with him and watched a couple movies. He's sleeping now and I have to run and get the boys from school in about an hour.

Tonight is Joe's Christmas Party for the swim team, I think CJ is going to stay home with Chuck tonight. Tomorrow I'll be gone again and I feel bad. I was gone for over 5 hours last night but he did okay.

They are still looking for a cutter to go into the woods. They have a couple of leads, just need to call around and find someone that is willing and won't cost too much.

Chuck's Accident Cont.

2008-12-18T11:35:00.001-05:00

So, Charlie had to be picked up with a front end loader and be carried out of the woods. So there stories were so much alike, it was funny. He got hurt here in Conneaut, says he likes to hunt and fish up here and would love to live here but his wife's family is all down around youngstown.

The second night wasn't that great. We all fell asleep around 10pm and at 1am the awful nurse comes into the room, turns on the light screams "Hey Charlie, Hey Charles, time to get up for your pain medicine." Then she picks Chuck's bad leg up and shoves another pillow under his leg and does the same thing to Charlie. All she did was make them hurt even worse! Then she finds me there and comes over and smacks my legs and starts screaming at me "Hey get up and get out, you can't be here!" Said I would have to leave cuz this isn't a private room and since he has a roommate I would have to leave. That made Charlie mad and said he wanted me to stay that we are all friends and I wasn't going anywhere. That made the nurse mad and with all the commotion the LPN came in and the RN left. Thank God! The LPN said I could stay and she would talk to the RN. We never saw the RN again and I'm glad. They got their med's but the guys where in so much pain and were upset by the whole ordeal that they couldn't sleep so they stayed up talking for over 2 hours. The nurses told them in the morning that they almost came in to tell them to be quiet and go to sleep cuz they were so loud, LOL!! They both don't hear that well. We had the room right across from the nurses station.

Then at 4am this little old lady comes out to the nurses station and starts screaming at the nurses that she should have had her med's at 3am and it's now 4am and why aren't they there yet and why didn't the nurse order them when she told her too, etc. She went on and on and was no mean and nasty and LOUD!! SIGH!! There is NO resting in hospitals!

Then by 6am everyone was coming and going, nurses for med's, blood pressure and temp. people, those that give baths and clean the beds, physical therapy, doctors, just on and on all morning long.

The nice thing is that you can order your own food from a menu and get as much of it as you like so Chuck ordered double so that I could eat too so I didn't have to spend money on the expensive cafeteria food. The food was actually good too.

A little after lunch we found out that both Chuck and Charlie could go home, took over 4 hours to get a set of crutches for Chuck and Charlie had to wait over an hour for a wheel chair ride to his car. I had to walk over to another building to get Chuck's med's that he has to give himself twice a day. He is on shots that he gives himself in the stomach twice a day for blood clots, I guess so he doesn't get any. Just a 28 day prescription the guy told me it was over $1,000.00 for the stuff! I was lucky he had enough there someone didn't pick up theirs so he had enough. I'm glad. I didn't have to pay for that but I did have to pay for the pain med's and there were 2 and each was about $16 so that isn't too bad.

We finally made it home at 5:30 and of course coming into the house a piece of ice gave out and Chuck slipped and hit his bad leg on the stairs. Poor guy, CJ and I helped him up and into the house. We got him on the couch and I gave him 2 pain pills and he slept till 9pm.

He is fine, and basically sleeps on and off all day, I think the pain pills makes him tired. He gets around the house alright on his crutches but he is still in a lot of pain. Once the pain gets less he'll be able to move around more. I don't think he'll be leaving the house till the 28th when we have Christmas at my sisters house. We just have to be sure no one touches or bumps his bad leg.

I have to put up the tree, which is in town and I have to get yet. I guess the boys are going to have to help me with that. Chuck was going to help me with that this weekend. I'm glad that tomorrow is the last day of school, I will do a LOT LESS running around with the boys come Monday. Just CJ will have gymnastics but other than that, I don't have to run anywhere! That will be a very nice break.

Today, I took the boys to school and came right back home and went back to bed. Didn't get up till 9am. I'm still very tired and I feel like I could sleep all day. Tonight is my long night out with the boys. I leave at 3:30 and get home at 8:30. I hope he'll be okay while I'm gone. Then tomorrow night is Joe's Christmas Party at the Y for the swim team and that starts at 6pm. Then on Saturday Joe has a swim meet and they go all day and CJ has caroling from 3-8 and I have to make sure he gets a ride to that. Joe really wants to go too but can't cuz of the swim meet. So, come Sunday I don't think I have to run anywhere and live can slow down a bit.

I'm glad we got our Christmas shopping mostly all done on Friday night. There might be a few things I will pick up but mostly it's done and I have it all wrapped! When my husband was hit by a train in 2000 that was on Dec. 14th and I had all the Christmas stuff done then too but we had the tree up, this time we don't. He had surgery on his right leg with the same recovery time. This accident was on Dec. 15th. We told him he should just take December off and not do anything around that time of year, LOL!!

We are looking for someone to cut trees down while Chuck is healing so that we can keep working and making some kind of money. I hope we find someone by next week.

Come to find out, his wallet and cash are gone. When I went for his clothes, they were all over this room they keep them in and there was nothing in his jeans pockets. Chuck told them to give the wallet and cash to his brother but they didn't and they are now gone. So, had to get a hold of the bank for new bank cards, I checked and no money has been taken out of either accounts! He has to get a new drivers license once he is up and around, we'll do that. Just sucks to have this happen on top of everything else!

Chuck's Accident

2008-12-17T20:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, it' s been a VERY LONG week, my brain is fried and I'm exhausted! But I'm home now and all is good.

On Monday just when I walked in the door from picking the boys up from school Chuck calls me from his cell phone to tell me he broke his leg, he thinks it's a compound break but isn't for sure cuz of all his clothes he has on. Said he called 911 and his brother and that he thinks he'll be going to Ashtabula hospital. I said okay and hung up. I got the boys and left the house. I then called him again to see how he was doing and he told me that he was cutting down trees (he's a logger) and one got hung up on another so he moved on and left it that way to get it later with the skidder. He didn't realize how badly the wind had picked up (said had he known it was that bad they would have called it a day) and apparently it picked that tree up, turned it around, and it came down by him. He caught the end of the tree on the back of his left leg below the knee. He said he could here people coming so he hung up. He was a mile back into the woods so it took a very long time for the EMT's to get to him.

When they did get to him, they strapped him on a back board, and put him on the hood of the skidder and his brother Dave drove the skidder backwards as best he could the mile out of the woods, then he was transferred to the bed of a pick-up truck to get back to the main road where the ambulance was waiting.

Now, I am at the hospital in Ashtabula waiting for him and NOTHING! I waited almost an hour, and I even called other hospitals! NOTHING!! Where was he???? Finally, Dave answered his phone and come to find out, no one in our area can treat him, his leg was that bad so they had to life flight him to Youngstown, an hour away.

Come to find out, it took them an hour to get to him and he had to lay in about 6 inches of cold water while waiting for them. So, because of his hypothermia and compound broken leg they had to fly him to Youngstown.

So, the boys and I followed my inlaws all the way there. I have no extra clothes, we haven't eatin since lunch, I was NOT ready to be gone for a few days! We get to Youngstown and we get to see him for a little bit but then he is rushed off to surgery around 8pm. The doctor comes out at 10:30 to let us know how he's doing. Said he broke his leg in 3 places and broke his ankle too. The shin bone did come out of the skin (NASTY) so we have to be VERY careful of infection but the surgery went really well. They put a rod in his leg and 2 screws in his ankle. We got to see him at midnight when they put him in his room.

My inlaws stayed a few minutes and talked with Chuck and then they left and took the boys with them. My sister in law stayed with them the first night. I didn't plan on leaving the hospital until Chuck did. The first night I ended up on the cold tile floor next to his bed and got about 3 hours sleep but not all together. My hips hurt really bad come morning. His roommate seemed nice enough. He gave me a blanket and some pillows, which was nice. He smoked in the bathroom and coughed a lot though, LOL!! He left the next day.

He did well after his surgery, ate well, got lots of rest and stayed on his pain med's so the pain didn't bother him too bad. He did get out of bed and with a walker walked out of the room and back in and sat down in this nice chair that reclined. I then used this chair to sit in and was very nice to sleep in!

Then Charlie came in the evening to fill the empty bed. He's really nice. It was funny because both of them were named Charles, both were hurt having to do with trees! LOL!! Charlie was building a tree stand by himself and fell and blew out his left heal. He did this the day after Thanksgiving and had to wait for the swelling to go down before he could have surgery.

I'm exhausted, I will finish this on the next post tomorrow.

Good King Wenceslas

2008-12-15T13:19:00.000-05:00

This is my mom's favorite song so I thought I would have Joe play it on his violin so she could here him.

Karate Kitty

2008-12-13T11:08:00.000-05:00

Okay, now that I know what I'm doing I might go a little video crazy, so bear with me! Here is Little Kitty and Sandy "playing" Sandy knows she isn't allowed to "play" with Little Kitty so I had to set the video camera up and leave the room and pretend I was busy in the kitchen. These "Playing" sessions can go on and on but here is 30 seconds worth!

Joe's Swim Meet

2008-12-12T11:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, I feel like a total "Ninny Muggins". I searched for why I can't upload my videos and come to find out I have to "Publish" the movies. I didn't do the last step! LOL!! Okay, so I'm going to try this again. Here is Joe's last swim meet on Dec. 6th in Oberlin OH which was 2 hours from home!

Sandy's Case

2008-12-12T10:33:00.000-05:00

Well, I went and signed the papers today, they are settling and I'll get my money back. I'm glad it's finally over! I think my lawyer is too.

I love the videos over on Becky's blog. I have been singing "Hamster on a Piano" for days!! LOVE that one! I also love her sense of humor on the Russian song, LOL!!! I can't seem to upload any videos. I've been trying for days. I use a program to take the videos off my camera and make them into avi's but they won't upload. I spent 2 hours yesterday trying to upload Joe's Concert but it never went. So, I guess until I figure out there will be no videos from me. What a bummer!

Cookie Exchange

2008-12-08T09:20:00.000-05:00

Well, yesterday was the cookie exchange at the restaurant. It went well, one person didn't show up and another backed out so I ended up taking 2 dozen of my own home. I was fine with that as I really like these cookies. I brought them home and put them all out on the counter and after dinner we all dug into the cookies. I don't think they will even make it through the week! LOL! I was surprised that some of the cookies were barely a bite, they were so small!! 12 cookies fit into a sandwich bag! I'm not sure if I'll do it again next year though. We shall see.

CJ & Baby Peter

2008-12-05T15:18:00.000-05:00

Here is CJ and Baby Peter today. The cat always likes to be on us and I thought this was cute that he wanted to sit on CJ while he practiced his piano. If you are wondering what's on TV that is just the Christmas Music Channel. Looks like "The First Noel" by Elvis! LOL!!

I got all my cookies done today with 2 cookies left over!! Man, that was close because I didn't feel like making yet another batch! So, now I get to eat two cookies! I think we have to put the recipe with these too, so I need to get that done but it's nice to have them all in the freezer for Sunday.

Cookies

2008-12-04T12:52:00.000-05:00

I'm in a cookie exchange so I had to get busy making cookies. I have to make 12 dozen!! I'm so TIRED today!! Joe's concert went really well but we all didn't get to bed till after 11pm then I'm up at 5:45am. I'm just dragging today. I didn't even go to SNAP to workout this morning. I dropped the boys off at school and then came straight home. Took a shower, did a load of clothes, did up all the dishes that I hadn't got to yesterday and gave the dog a shower because I let her out and she came in covered in mud, oh joy! Then I baked up one batch of cookies. I still have many more to go! But at least I got something done today. The exchange is on Sunday and I'm busy tonight and Saturday so I have to get these done soon!

Homemade Bread Recipe

2008-11-30T17:15:00.000-05:00

My sister Kitty wanted the recipe for this sandwich bread I make. She says it looks light and fluffy but really it's a dense bread, not really heavy but dense which is good for sandwiches. The recipe came with the bread machine back in 99, man I need a new bread machine, mine really is falling apart but I just keep hoping it will keep kickin!

This makes a 2 pound loaf of bread

2 Tlbs Sugar or 2 Tlbs Honey instead
4 Cups Bread Flour
2 Tsp Salt
2 Tsp Yeast
1 ½ Cups Milk
2 Tbls Butter

My bread machine is falling apart and you can't put liquid in first because the seals are all rotted away so it leaks. So, I put in the flour and then sugar/honey and salt. I make a hole and put the yeast in that and cover it back up with flour. I put the milk in a glass measuring cup and cut the butter (which I use real butter) into small chunks into the milk and put that into the microwave on very low just to warm the milk and melt the butter. Then I pour this over the flour mixture and set the machine on dough and let it run till it's done.

Then transfer the dough into the bread pan. The size of my bread pan is 13" x 4" x 4". So, maybe because it's a bigger space then the bread machine the bread doesn't turn out so heavy? Not sure.

A couple of folks have told me that Amazon has this pan for a lot less then King Arthur Flour does. Also the bread slicer I use is a West Bend Bread Slicing Guide. I got it at Wal*Mart years ago. I have no idea if they still sell it or not. It folds in half and I'll miss it when it dies. I'm on my second one now. I see they have them on ebay. Here's a picture I got off ebay of it.

The electric knife was a gift from my Mother In Law Christmas of 99. I cut myself pretty bad with a bread knife the first time I made bread and she felt bad and got me the knife. I'm still using the same one and I use it all the time. I'm surprised that it still works! It's great for cutting the bread, it doesn't "Squish" the bread and miss-shape it.

Homemade Bread

2008-11-29T19:42:00.000-05:00

I make all my own sandwich bread. Have for years. I do buy hamburger and hotdog buns but I always make my sandwich bread. About 8 years ago or so I bought the coolest bread pan! Here is how I make my bread.

First you do the dough in the bread machine.

I do it on the dough setting. When it's done I then put it in the bread pan. Then you put the lid on the pan.Then I put it in the oven to rise. I set the timer for 2 hours. This took me a while to get it down, because if it rises to much it comes out the end!! So, you check it by moving the lid, if it moves easliy then you need to let it rise more. You want to feel it pull a bit when you try to move the lid. Then you take it out of the oven, pre-heat the oven for 10 minutes and then bake it for 30 minutes. Then when it's done take the lid off and put the loaf of bread on a cooling rack.

I then let it cool down for a while and I trim the hard crust of the edges and then I use an electric knife to slice into slices.

I was making this bread for the party. I was to bring egg salad sandwhiches. Here is what the bread looks like cut up. Looks just like store bought bread! I LOVE this pan!!! It was expensive but worth it! I kind of wish I had 2! But I will live with one, LOL!

And here is all the sandwiches I made. I ended up bringing 2 home, so not bad!

Here is the link to the Bread Pan.

Gram's 90th Birthday!

2008-11-29T19:35:00.001-05:00

Tonight we went to the nursing home for Gram's (Chuck's Dad's Mom) 90th birthday party. Here she is at 90 years old!

Thanksgiving

2008-11-29T10:50:00.000-05:00

The boys and Chuck went hunting early in the morning so I was home by myself for the morning. I cleaned the house and played on the computer with Christmas music on. Very relaxing! Then around 12:30 we headed over to the in-laws for lunch. Brenda, Lou and the gang didn't come so we decided to go see them after lunch at Bonnie's.

I put all the pictures I could find of Chuck's side of the family on my digital picture frame and took it over there. They all really enjoyed that. Lunch was good, so we all had a good time. Around 3:30 we headed over to Brenda's to see the new baby (Zack)!

Here he is!! Joe is holding him.

He is oh so cute and small!! Mine where never that size, well, not outside of my tummy anyway! He was 7lbs 8oz and mine were 10lbs 5oz and 9lbs 12oz, LOL!!!

Here is Joe holding him.

Here is CJ holding him.

Odds and Ends

2008-11-26T10:01:00.000-05:00

The phone company just called and said I had been over billed, I think over a course of time, and that I would be getting a check for $160 in the mail soon. COOL! Something about a double line? No clue, just glad they are actually giving it back. We hate our one and only phone company! I think I'll just use it to pay the phone bill, LOL!!

Met with the lawyer yesterday and he thinks that the APL will just settle for what I'm asking for, which is $350! LOL!! Brett said he is working Pro-Bono so I don't owe him anything. Maybe I'll have it by Christmas? That would be nice! People just can't believe I would sue warm fuzzy animals!! God forbid! LOL! The paper has been running "fluff" articles about the APL that has nothing to do with the case but they are trying to look good for donations since it's the holiday season.

The boys have school today but then they will be off till Tuesday. It will be nice to be able to sleep past 5:45am. They are going hunting in the morning tomorrow and then we are all off to the In-Laws for dinner at 1pm. Brenda had her 6th baby last week so she probably won't be there but I hope Lou and the kids will be. I haven't been over to see the baby yet, I really should get over there. She had him on Saturday night. His name is Zack.

I'm in a cookie exchange this year. I've never been in one before so I thought I'd try it out. I have to make 12 dozen peanut butter blossoms with the kisses in the middle of them. There are 13 of us in all doing the exchange. I'm doing them with the ladies I have lunch with every Tuesday. I hope I actually like the cookies I'll be getting, you never know! We do the exchange on Dec. 7th so I better get to the store and get everything I need and get cracking!

Joe's first concert with the Erie Jr. Phil is on Wed. Dec 3rd at 7:30pm on West 10th street in Erie. I have to get him clothes, black pants, white shirt, black shoes and a tie. Can be any kind of tie. I'll have to take the camcorder and tripod and tape it. The videos I take I can't seem to upload them to YouTube though I have been trying. SIGH!

Thanksgiving Dinner

2008-11-23T19:01:00.001-05:00

Today was Thanksgiving Dinner for my side of the family. I had a really good time and I was sad when it was time to go. It went so fast! The meal was great and I love sitting down after the meal and talking with all the ladies. We watched a picture slide show that my Aunt Esther made and we talked about old times (My favorite!) and just had some good laughs. I was extremely stuffed and happy when I went home. Can't wait for Christmas to come and we can do it again at my sister Kitty's house!

Chuck and I both said how much we missed my dad. He's been gone for a year and a half. Chuck usually talks to him the whole time and he said talking with Uncle Terry just isn't the same. At these gatherings is when I usually see my Dad and I really miss him today!

Here are some pictures that I took with my phone. My sister Candy took some of all of us with her camera but she hasn't sent me any yet so that will have to wait.

Here is the left half of the table. I got a picture of everyone but it turned out so fuzzy you couldn't see anything. My phone doesn't take that great of pictures and my camera needs to be professionally cleaned because it has some serious black spots!

Here is Joe. He sat across from me so I got a picture of him. The computer behind him is where the slide show was going on.

This is Douglas the Snowman that is ontop of my nephew (Lynn's) car. It has been there for over 40 miles and hasn't gotten knocked off, LOL!! It was cute so I thought I'd catch a picture of it

I took this picture off my sisters blog since she hasn't emailed me any of those pictures yet here is everyone! (I just got them in my inbox, thanks!!)

CJ's Deer

2008-11-23T18:28:00.001-05:00

On Saturday morning CJ got up early to go deer hunting. Before the sun was even out they headed out to the deer stands. It was youth weekend and if your 16 and under you can hunt Saturday and Sunday. CJ and Chuck came back around 9am frozen and no deer. I had to head out to Joe's swim meet but CJ and Chuck went back out around 2:30 and after being in the deer stand for about 45 minutes CJ got a button buck. Here is the picture:

Yet Another Snow Day!

2008-11-21T13:57:00.000-05:00

Yup, woke up at 5:20 and I checked to see if the school was closed and it wasn't listed so I figured we were good to go. The alarm went off at 5:45 and I opened the front door and Holy Cow! There must have been about 2 feet of snow piled up by the front door and everywhere else! So, I checked the computer again and this time a ton of schools were listed. So, I went back to bed. I didn't get up till 8am.

Read Heather's Blog (Muddy Boots) and saw all the baking she was doing and thought I would do some too. I made coffee cake for breakfast. When it was done I hollered to CJ if he wanted a piece of cake for breakfast! LOL!! He said SURE and came running! It was good but I put it in a smaller cake dish then I should have and that made it VERY tall. Next time I will go with a 9 X 13 pan.

Then I baked up a loaf of bread since we finished off the bread with meatball subs for lunch. After lunch I made a batch of peanut butter cookies and a batch of peanut butter chocolate chips cookies. Joe doesn't like chocolate so I always make some without the chips.

Chuck didn't work today, too much snow, so he and the boys and the neighbor boy put together a couple deer stands, sited in the guns and are getting ready for youth season for deer that starts tomorrow. CJ is going out in the morning. Joe has a swim meet. Then on Sunday Joe might go in the morning but he has play practice at church at 10am and right after church we have Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt's so that shoots Sunday for hunting and it's only this weekend that just the kids go.

The boys aren't quiet into hunting the way my husband is. My husband is a die hard hunting fan, the boys, not so much. This bothers Chuck a lot cuz he wants them to love it as much as he does. Maybe some day they will. I think right now they are just lazy teenagers! They do like to hunt, but they don't like to do what it takes TO hunt! LOL! Like right now the neighbor boy is helping Chuck put the stands together while Joe is taking a nap and CJ i s on the couch watching! ARG!! Sometimes my kids are SO SO SO SO SO lazy!!!!

Letter to the Editor

2008-11-20T15:01:00.000-05:00

Why is my life always spinning with drama? My lawyer called me to inform me that there was a letter to my story so I went out and got a copy. He is writing up a response. Of course this wasn't online so I had to type it all out! LOL!! Here is the letter in today's paper:

Lawsuit Hurts Volunteers

Re Rozalski's APL dog Sandy that had to be spayed after she adopted it:

I felt that Ms Rozalski is spitting in the faces of so many of us volunteers who have put in-literally-hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours at the APL for free. What has Ms Rozalski done for the community lately? She's suing it, that what! The Astabula APL is the only APL in the biggest and poorest county in Ohio and has operated on a shoe-string budget for ages. How's about we counter-sue her for the grief and annoyance she brings to so many volunteers with whom I've spoken about this frivolous case?

No one disagrees that the APL should reimburse her for her vet bill for spaying, which I'm sure they agreed to do. But to sue this desperately needed organization and vet who has done so many spays and neuters it'd make your head spin? I am confident that hundreds, if not thousands, of satisfied patrons would beg to differ with Ms Rozalski and her lawyer's charge that the APL may be intentionally defrauding the public. Absurd! And Pathetic.

Well, thanks for the great kick-off to the Holiday season, when the usually generous public helps out in a big way with donations, gifts that help carry the shelter through the next few months of budgeting.

Char Rao
Astabula

Nice huh? LOL!! She has no idea that the APL refused to speak with me, I called numbers of times and even went there and they just plain refused to see me! I even wrote a letter along with my vet bill asking for ONLY the $155 for the spay. NOTHING!!! ah well, what can you do! She assumes wrong if she thinks the APL was offering me my money for the spay. They offered me NOTHING! I wonder what Brett will write in return? Can't wait to see it!

Well, that's my drama for today. It seems to follow me! My life would be boring without it I guess!

My Radio

2008-11-17T19:07:00.000-05:00

Ah, I must complain about my radio!! I have been listening to XM Radio Channel 17 for 4 years now and I have always LOVED it! It's country music from the 80's and 90's with NO commercials, NO real live people talking, with only station identification here and there but mostly just solid music. LOVE IT!! Then comes last Tuesday!! I FLIPPED OUT on the way to dropping the boys off at school.

There was a PERSON talking on my radio!!! They were saying what the songs were and making stupid jokes, I was mad!! I was going on and on about it all the way to school and I complained to the girls at the gym too. I found out that Sirius has merged with XM radio so my station is now Sirius 61/XM 17. Music is the same, there are still no commercials but there are people on there yapping and thinking they are funny!! I'm so upset!!!! ARG!!!!

I don't know if I'll ever get over it either! :( LOL!!! Just ask the boys, they will tell you all about my fit about the radio. My family has heard all about it all week long! LOL!!

On a good note, the Christmas Channels have started already! So, now I can listen to Christmas music 24/7!! Yeah for me!!!

Snow Day!!

2008-11-17T18:52:00.000-05:00

So, we got hammered with snow last night. I was at the Y with Joe all day for a swim meet and I had to drive 20-25 miles an hour all the way home. Took over an hour!!! I was glad to get home though.

Got up this morning at 5:45am and let the dog out and checked the computer and smiled! Snow Day! I climbed right back into bed until 8am! The boys woke up around 7:30 all scared thinking I slept in and they were late for school! They were happy to spend the day on their computers.

I did make them get off at lunch, to eat and play their music. I pulled the Christmas music out and they were happy about that. Joe played "Good King Weceslas" and that made him think of Nana and he asked me when she was coming because it's almost Christmas and that is when we see her. He was sad to hear that she couldn't come this year but he understood why. They love ya Mom and miss you!

If I ever figure out YouTube I will have Joe play that song on his violin and put it up on my blog. I get all the way to saving videos on my computer but I can't seem to figure out how to get them to upload to YouTube. Very frustrating!

So, I think I'm going to just stay home all day and Chuck calls, he forgot his keys to the skidder so I had to run them into Ashtabula. Then I THOUGHT Joe had a swim team practice at 3pm but come to find out when I got there that it was canceled for Monday!! The coach doesn't have me on his email list so I was clueless. I ran all the way in there for NOTHING!! ARG!!! That is a 25 minute drive one way!! I would have much rather stayed home on my computer! LOL!

Front Page

2008-11-15T13:05:00.000-05:00

Last night, Mark Todd, the man writing the article for the paper, came by last night around 6pm and took my picture along with Sandy. She did really well and sat next to me on the couch for over 5 minutes with a stranger taking our picture. She LOVES new people and is usually all over them, LOL!

So, today we are on the front page of the paper!! I bought 3, LOL!! This morning Joe has violin/piano lesson in Erie so we are out of the house by 8:30 and by 9am people were calling the house. 1 left a nasty message and Chuck picked it up and gave the woman what for. She can't believe I would go after such a good cause like the APL and try to "get rich" off them!! Ya right!! I just wanted my $155!! Good grief!! Even the lawyer knew I was having a hard time with this case because they do a good service! Another lady called and said I was doing a good thing saying she had a problem with them and one of her cats.

Here is the article, there was no picture online to go with it:

LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST APL
By MARK TODD - Staff Writer - mtodd@starbeacon.comStar Beacon

November 14, 2008 11:33 pm— CONNEAUT — A Monroe Township woman is suing the Ashtabula County Animal Protective League and a northern Ohio veterinarian after discovering the dog she obtained from the shelter was not spayed, as billed.

When obtained early this year, the dog had stitches on her stomach, which indicated surgery had been performed. Months later, the owner was surprised to learn from a second veterinarian the animal had not been spayed.

“To say that everyone was floored is an understatement,” the plaintiff, Marsha Rozalski, 7024 Richardson Road, said in a statement.

Rozalski filed a lawsuit last week in Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court against the APL and Dr. Joy Hudson, who performed the alleged procedure on behalf of the APL, according to the complaint.

Rozalski obtained the dog, then 2 months old, at the end of January, according to the lawsuit.

The APL told Rozalski the same day of the adoption that the animal had been “altered.” Documents provided to Rozalski said the procedure had been done by Hudson and an APL staff member, according to the lawsuit.

The dog’s fur had been shaved, and the “skin had been incised and sutured in the area of her abdomen, which plaintiff reasonably understood to indicate that (the) dog had recently been spayed,” according to the complaint.

In September, Sandy the dog — a Labrador mix — began discharging blood, prompting a trip to a local veterinarian who informed Rozalski the animal was in heat. However, the reaction could have been caused by a portion of ovary left behind during the spaying, and the decision was made to perform surgery to retrieve any remaining pieces of ovary.

When the procedure was done Sept. 25, the veterinarian discovered the ovaries were intact and the dog had not been spayed, according to the lawsuit.

Rozalski claims the defendants “willfully and knowingly, and with intent to defraud their potential customers or clients, misrepresented the medical status of the dog.” In addition, the APL and Hudson “acted with gross negligence” in the matter, according to the complaint.

Rozalski is seeking compensation for the dog’s medical bills, “annoyance and inconvenience, punitive or exemplary damages” and attorney fees, according to the lawsuit.

The case has been assigned to Judge Ronald Vettel.A call was placed to the APL shelter on Green Road in Kingsville Township, seeking comment. The request would be passed along to the APL board, said someone who identified himself as a supervisor. Hudson reportedly works at a clinic in North Royalton, but when the business was contacted, a receptionist said Hudson no longer works there. She could not be reached for comment.

Rozalski is represented by Conneaut attorney Brett Joseph.

“If this is simple negligence, there’s cause for concern,” Joseph said. “If it’s a case of fraud or if intentional, my concern is much greater.”

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.

Update On Me

2008-11-14T09:28:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I'm just fine today. My shoulder doesn't hurt and my knees quit hurting too. I didn't work out today cuz number one, CJ is sick at home and 2 Chuck got pulled over yesterday for speeding and his plates expired in August!! Dang, it's hard to keep track of everything cuz some of the vehicles are in the company's name so they all fall on different months. This one was due in August on my birthday. All vehicles are registered in my name and the company's. This one isn't, not sure why so it fell on my birthday. I probably got a renewal reminder in the mail but I really don't remember. So, he got slammed with 2 tickets. Oh well, maybe he should slow down, LOL!! I should talk! :) So, I renewed them for 2 years like I did mine and we are good till 2010.

Home Sick

2008-11-14T09:15:00.001-05:00

Well, last night CJ was feeling much better. He even went to gymnastics and had a big supper. I thought all was well, WRONG!! Come 3am his up barfing and has a terrible migraine. So, I've been up for a LONG time! He finally feel asleep on the couch and I got up him at 6am to see if he was better and I could send him to school. He stood up and lost it again. So, he's home in bed. He tried some crackers but threw them up too. So, it's not just a headache that is causing him to be sick. I hope he feels somewhat better by tonight. It's the spaghetti dinner and their Basket Ball outing with the youth group. I don't mind taking his dinner home for later, I know he wants to hang out with his friends (the dinner is at their old school). I know he really wants to play BB too, so let's hope by then he's feeling better.

I fell

2008-11-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, I feel so stupid. Every morning I drop the boys off at school and then I go to SNAP Fitness. For some reason, I didn't pick my foot up all the way for the step up to the door and I fell and slammed my shoulder into the side of the building. I get up and go in, thinking everyone saw me, there were 3 people on treadmills there, but no one did. I could barely move my arm, but I got on the treadmill and could only do 13 minutes and went home. My shoulder still hurts. I usually do 45 minutes. The girls are going to think I just decided to stay home and not workout today, LOL! At least I didn't break anything, but I think I'm going to be sore for a while.

Sickness

2008-11-13T07:53:00.000-05:00

The boys have been sick all week long. CJ more then Joe. They both have head colds, but CJ is just miserable. He's had headaches all week long, he's exhausted, his whole body hurts, he can't breathe. Joe has a stuffy nose. LOL! CJ hasn't gone anywhere but school all week. He even missed gymnastics, which he never does. He might not go again tonight.

The school called me yesterday because his study hall teacher made him go to the nurse. They will only give out Tylenol so I told her forget it, that doesn't touch his headaches. She told me that she would send a paper home with CJ to fill out and I could bring in a brand new, unopened box of Motrin and then she can give it to the boys when they need some.

I do hope he starts feeling better soon. Friday they have a basketball outing with the youth group and I bought spaghetti dinner tickets for Friday from their old school. I LOVE spaghetti dinners!!! LOL!!

Sandy in the Snow

2008-11-10T14:50:00.000-05:00

I got a picture of Sandy freaking out in the snow this morning. We got hammered with at least 6 inches of snow here. A bit further south and NOTHING! I barely made it to the boys school, couldn't go more then 30 miles an hour the whole way and could barely see. I got a picture of her running around in circles in the snow.

Weekend Stuff

2008-11-09T18:38:00.000-05:00

This weekend wasn't too bad. I took Joe to his swim meet in Madison yesterday. This time I wasn't stuck there for 6 hours on hard bleachers, I only had to sit there for 4, LOL!! He did alright. I video taped it so I will have to learn how to get them up on YouTube and put them on here. I have yet to figure that out.

He said his googles kept coming off and it was very hard to swim with them full of water. This means they have worn out already, so time for me to get a new pair. I want to get a really good pair but I have no idea what a good pair is! I'll have to look around for one.

Today, all I did was go to Church this morning and all afternoon I sat on the computer and watched TV. Joe went to a friends house and CJ was sick all night so he stayed home from Church today. He had the runs! LOL!! I think it was from the 4 tacos loaded with hot sauce that he had last night!! He's been fine all afternoon so no problem going to school tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'm meeting a lady (Linda) for lunch. Actually, I'm going with Chuck and his brother Dave (who works for Chuck). This lady is building a big saw for Chuck for sawing up lathing boards, I think anyway. She really seems to like me and when Chuck told her I was selling books on half.com she offered to GIVE me all her books in her attic that where her fathers. Now, she's gotta be in her 50's or 60's so these books are old and are non-fiction books, which sell great on half.com. I can't believe she is just giving them to me!! That is just so nice!! I'll have to make sure and give her something really nice besides our business! LOL! She did mention that she is looking for the "Cotton Patch Bible" so I will look around and maybe get that for her for Christmas.

Boys And School

2008-11-06T22:46:00.000-05:00

Tonight Chuck went to the parent teacher conference at the boys school. I had to run the boys to gymnastics and swimming and I had a meeting at the church at 6:30 so I couldn't go. I guess the boys are doing really well and all the teachers really like them.

Chuck said that someone stole all the dry erase markers from the English teachers room and she told all her classes how upset she was that someone had taken them and that who ever did she would leave her door unlocked during a certain time the next day and she expects them to be returned. Well, I guess CJ came into her room before school started and said he felt bad that her markers were stolen and he brought his set from home for her. Said he never uses them and that she could have them. How sweat is that!! I never even knew he did that! BTW, the markers showed up in her desk later that day. But CJ really wanted her to have them so he asked if they could be a spare set for her room. LOL!!

Joe's English teacher said that he's very smart and gets most of the jokes she tells that usually goes over everyone else's head. That's Joe for you though, the jokester! Joe's music teacher said he is VERY talented and is the glue to the whole bass section. The only problem the teacher has with him is getting him to STOP playing! LOL!! He very impressed that he only has to tell Joe something once and he really gets it.

So, over all they are doing well. Report cards came out and Joe got all A's and has a 4.0 and CJ got 2 B's and the rest A's. I don't remember his grade point average, 3.6 or something like that. They both made honor roll. CJ would have gotten an A in History but his binder check's were low. He has a very hard time focusing and being organized, so I need to help him with this. If it weren't for that he would have had an A and that made him very depressed so the teacher helped him get it all organized and printed out what he needed and where for his binder.

Both need to improve on there book reports by doing EXACTLY what it's asking for and putting a little more effort into them. But, other than that, they are doing very well.

Update

2008-11-04T18:53:00.000-05:00

Okay, my sister Candy has informed me via email that I haven't updated my blog is SIX DAYS, God forbid, LOL!!!!

Well, sometimes my life is just boring! What can I say. I'm not all drama you know!

Well, today gas here is $1.99, can you believe it, they have dusted off there 1! I didn't even know they kept those 1's! LOL!! It's nice to fill my tank and not even get to $50! I used to get $50 and not even fill it up. This gas station only let's you get $50 on your debit card at a time. Amazing!

Yesterday, I grabbed the mail on my way to get the boys from school. I get there and I usually wait about 30 or so minutes. I like getting there early. Anyway, there is something for me to my old address on Mill Street in a big square envelope with just a PO box for a return address. I was going to toss it, since I'm assuming it's junk mail. I open it since I'm bored and a bit curious. To my amazement, it's from Google and it's a check for $309.88!!!! Wow, and I was going to throw it away!! LOL!!! Now, I have NO CLUE where this money came from. It says AdSense, which are those clickable adds I have on my blogs and websites. Now I make about $100 a YEAR with those. I checked my account and it says I have $41 made so far. They only cut checks if you have $100 in your account. Now, how did I get $309.88??? Plus, I have had the correct address on my AdSense account for months. So, I emailed google to see why I got this check, we'll see what they say. I cashed it anyway of course LOL!!

Other than that, I have been running the boys here and there every evening. I take Joe Swimming on Monday from 4-5, on Tuesday Joe has Jr. Phil from 5-6:15 and CJ has gymnastics from 6:30-8:30. Chuck usually takes Joe and I take CJ. On Wed. CJ has music lessons 2:30-3:30 and Joe has jazz/pep band practice from 2:30-4:00. Then they go to Youth Group from 6:30-9:00. On Thursday CJ has gymnastics from 4-6 and Joe has swimming from 7-8. Joe has to come with us because both are in Ashtabula, so we are gone from 3:30 to 8:30 on Thursday nights! On Friday Joe has swimming from 6-7. And on Saturday mornings Joe has music lessons in Erie from 9:15-10:15 and every other Saturday he has a swim meets (which last at LEAST 6 hours). He has one this Saturday and it's about 45 minutes away! So, that is how my life goes right now. It's peaceful till I have to pick them up from school and then it's just crazy!

On Monday morning I met with Sandy's lawyer and he has decided to just go after the APL and he is getting the licensing board involved and looking into the Dr. that supposedly gave Sandy the first spay. He filled on Monday and the paper will run the story some time next week. I will keep you updated on that as things happen.

It Snowed!!

2008-10-29T13:06:00.000-04:00

Just thought I'd share a picture of my back deck. It snowed today big fat flakes. I loved it!! I dug through my CD's and put on "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow" LOL!!!! The dog thought I was nuts! I even went out and shoveled the walkway!

Wooden Nickel Buffalo Farm

2008-10-26T17:00:00.000-04:00

We went to the wooden nickel today and man we were all VERY disappointed!! I spent about $60 on all of us there and it just makes me sick to think about it!! It's a buffalo farm that has a gift shop/restaurant/ and corn maze. We were all very excited about going and eating real buffalo. We all order cheeseburgers and then come to find out fries are only on the platter so we all go with a platter. It was $3 more for a "bit" of fries!! UGH!! Chuck wanted Cider, nope, they were all out. The platter comes with fries OR soup and CJ and Chuck ordered the pepper souWe get our drinks and sit down for a VERY LONG time!! I have a TV blaring in my ears cuz it's 2 feet behind me. The place was rather full and only men where cooking and serving. They messed up just about everyones order and had to re-fill quiet a few. There was a dog roaming around begging for food from everyone. Nudging them and being quiet annoying! Then the guy comes out to tell Chuck and CJ that they were out of soup. They were both upset but went with fries. When our food FINALLY came out the cheeseburgers where served on HOT DOG BUNS!!!!! He said they ran out of hamburger buns. Probably on all those orders they had to re-do!!! ARG!!!! Non of us got full, I've had better burgers at a fast food joint for a buck. The fries were home made and actually quiet good, but I make the same at home all the time, LOL! So, I said maybe it will be better once we get out to the corn maze.

This is our first corn maze ever! We have always wanted to go to one and so this was our first one. BOO HISS!! The corn was about waist high or smaller. There were a few that might have been as tall as me. It was very thin and you could see the whole field by just standing there!! So, we made the best of it by finding boxes with stickers to fill our paper so we knew we went through the whole thing. I told CJ while we were in the maze, thank God we are going to WalMart when we are done, at least we know we'll have fun there! LOL!

Here is the amazing corn maze!

Here is Joe getting the stickers out of the little house to put on our paper. There are 16 of them in all.

Here is CJ getting another sticker for the paper. Notice how you CAN NOT get lost in this field of corn!

Here are the bison in the field.